The featured molecules this month come from the paper by Gabriel Pinto on the chemistry of moth repellents. Several of the molecules exhibit interesting structural features that students should explore. Hexachloroethane, not surprisingly, has energy minima in the staggered form that is shown. Students could be asked to look at the models for empenthrin and permethrin to see if they can see similar staggered arrangements in these more complex molecules. Camphor is a good way to introduce strained structures, and students can use the Jmol version of the model to measure bond angles to see if they can identify some of the consequences of this strain. The carbonyl moiety in camphor is interesting as it is non-planar. .

In addition to the static image, two fully manipulable versions (Jmol, MDLChime) of these molecules appear below. (The Jmol versions may take a few extra seconds to load, based on the speed of your Internet connection.)