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What does t-butyl mean?

Answer 1

It's short for tert-butyl.

"But-" means 4, and "tert-" means tertiary (containing three #R# groups that aren't #"H"#). So what it means is you have a tertiary functional group, and it contains four carbons.

Therefore, the tert-butyl group looks like this:

The (1) is anything other than a carbon, since "but-", again, implies 4 carbons.

So, you might have, for example:

tert-butanol, in which (1) is #"OH"#.
tert-butoxide, in which (1) is #"O"^(-)#.
As a tip, it is convenient to remember the reaction of potassium tert-butoxide dissolved in tert-butanol, on high heat. That is an easy way to perform an #"E"2# reaction in an exam. :)

Just write:

#stackrel(t-"BuOK"" ")stackrel(t-"BuOH"" ")(->)#
#" "" """^(Delta)#

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Answer 2

Nolan Allen

T-butyl, or tert-butyl, refers to the tert-butyl group, which is a functional group in organic chemistry. It consists of three methyl groups (CH3) bonded to a central carbon atom, which is also bonded to another carbon atom. This central carbon atom is referred to as a tertiary carbon atom. The t-butyl group is often represented as (CH3)3C-.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.