Alexander zaitsev organic chemist
Organic chemist job description...
Zaytsev's rule
Empirical rule in organic chemistry
In organic chemistry, Zaytsev's rule (or Zaitsev's rule, Saytzeff's rule, Saytzev's rule) is an empirical rule for predicting the favored alkene product(s) in elimination reactions.
Alexander zaitsev organic chemist
While at the University of Kazan, Russian chemist Alexander Zaytsev studied a variety of different elimination reactions and observed a general trend in the resulting alkenes. Based on this trend, Zaytsev proposed that the alkene formed in greatest amount is that which corresponded to removal of the hydrogen from the alpha-carbon having the fewest hydrogen substituents.
For example, when 2-iodobutane is treated with alcoholic potassium hydroxide (KOH), but-2-ene is the major product and but-1-ene is the minor product.[1]
More generally, Zaytsev's rule predicts that in an elimination reaction the most substituted product will be the most stable, and therefore the most favored.
The rule makes no generalizations about the stereoch