Organic Reaction Pathways Game
Drag reagents onto compounds to convert ethane, ethene, ethanol, ethanoic acid and esters, and take route challenges.
Drag a reagent tile onto the glowing compound to convert it. Explore the map, or take a challenge to make a target compound in the fewest steps.
About the Organic Reaction Pathways Game
Free organic reaction pathways game. Drag reagents onto compounds to convert ethane, ethene, ethanol, ethanoic acid and esters, and take route challenges. Drag, change the sliders and see the result live. No sign-up, works on phone and computer. Built for reactions & kinetics, the organic reaction pathways game runs instantly in your browser: change a setting or drag an object and the result updates at once, so you learn by trying things out rather than only reading about them.
Drag reagents onto compounds to convert ethane, ethene, ethanol, ethanoic acid and esters, and take route challenges. Use it to explore reactions & kinetics ideas at your own pace, then check what you found against the key ideas further down this page.
How to use the Organic Reaction Pathways Game
- Pick an option such as Free explore, Challenge to switch modes or load an example.
- Press "Start again from ethane", "New challenge" to start, reset or change what is happening.
- Where you see a glowing handle, object, weight or atom, drag it with your mouse or finger. Everything responds in real time.
- Watch the readouts and graphs update as you experiment, and compare what you see with the key ideas below.
Things to try
- Turn ethane into ethanoic acid in as few steps as you can.
- Find both routes from bromoethane to ethene and ethanol.
- Try a wrong reagent and see nothing happens.
- Complete the whole map of 14 reactions.
Key ideas you can learn
- Each reaction needs the right reagent and conditions.
- Alcohols oxidise to aldehydes and then to carboxylic acids.
- Alkenes undergo addition; haloalkanes undergo substitution or elimination.
- Planning a synthesis means finding a route through the map.
Where this is used in the real world
Chemists in pharmaceutical and perfume industries plan multi-step syntheses exactly like this, working out reagents and the shortest safe route.
Who is this simulation for?
Students learning reaction rates, equilibrium and equations, and teachers who want a visual way to explain what happens to particles.
For teachers: project it on the board, let students predict what will happen, then run it together. For students: change one thing at a time and write down what changes.
Frequently asked questions
How do you turn ethanol into ethanoic acid?
Heat it under reflux with acidified potassium dichromate(VI). Distilling instead stops at ethanal.
How is an ester made?
Warm a carboxylic acid with an alcohol and a little concentrated sulfuric acid catalyst (esterification).
Is the Organic Reaction Pathways Game free to use?
Yes. It is completely free, with no signup, no download and no ads inside the simulation. It runs in your web browser.
Does the Organic Reaction Pathways Game work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. It uses touch as well as the mouse, so you can drag objects with your finger. A larger screen makes the controls easier to see.