Organic Chemistry Text Book (CHEM 3401 and 3402)

The most common chemical transformation of a carbon-carbon double bond is the addition reaction. A large number of reagents, both inorganic and organic, have been found to add to this functional group, and in this section we shall review many of these reactions. A majority of these reactions are exothermic, due to the fact that the C-C pi-bond is relatively weak (ca. 63 kcal/mole) relative to the sigma-bonds formed to the atoms or groups of the reagent. Remember, the bond energies of a molecule are the energies required to break (homolytically) all the covalent bonds in the molecule. Consequently, if the bond energies of the product molecules are greater than the bond energies of the reactants, the reaction will be exothermic. The following calculations for the addition of H-Br are typical. Note that by convention exothermic reactions have a negative heat of reaction.