nucleophilic addition or substitution

[lsexie]

im confused how do you rily differentiate or tell when it is either of the two?

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[baller99]

its actually not that tough
addition - the nucleophile adds on to the original compound (ie formation of a hemiacetal)

subsitution - the nucleophile adds to the original compound BUT kicks out something else, so the bond structure stays the same (only now the nucleophile is in the original compound). an example is conversion of carboxylic acid to ester.

usually these will occur around double bond of some sort (ie C = O)

 

[lsexie]

cool, thanks a lot that clarifies it!!