Comprehensive System for Classification and Nomenclature of Organic Reactions

Previous authors' ideas on reaction classification have been incorporated into a unified and comprehensive system to record the bonding change in any reaction. The system offers a “reaction logo” as a single drawing of the bonding change at the reaction center. It also provides a smooth hierarchy of increasing detail from the two monocyclic basic forms (homovalent and ambivalent), through their subclasses of unchanging shell σ-bonds on the reaction center, to the full detail of the individual atom types in the reaction center. A simple linear notation incorporates all of this information in a form such as −3L[OCCCOH], for the reaction center of the aldol reaction.