This article advocates using curved arrows to improve retrosynthetic analysis for synthesis problems, suggesting increased understanding among students.
The purpose of this article is to advocate the wider use of curved arrows by organic chemistry students as a tool for retrosynthetic analysis, particularly for synthesis problems involving Grignard-carbonyl additions, aldol-, Claisen-, and Michael condensations, Diels-Alder, and other C‑C bond-forming reactions. This type of problem is challenging because it requires inductive reasoning that is rarely found elsewhere in the curriculum. However, solving retrosynthetic problems becomes easier when one uses several curved arrows to follow deductively the reverse mechanism. The important first steps of several example retro-reactions are described, and the curved arrow versions of these reactions are given in the Supporting Material. The main benefit of this approach is that, once the appropriate type of synthesis reaction is identified, the correct synthons structures can be generated.
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John W. Keller (2010) studied this question.
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