Amines:

3 min readNov 8, 2020

The alkyl derivatives of ammonia are called amine. In other words, the compounds that are obtained when the hydrogen atoms in the ammonia molecule are replaced by an equal number of alkyl groups. They are called amine.

They are divided into three classes based on the number of alkyl groups associated with the nitrogen atom in amines.

The primary amines have only one alkyl group attached to the nitrogen atom, the secondary amines have two alkyl groups attached to the nitrogen atom and the tertiary amines have three alkyl groups attached to the nitrogen atom.

Nomenclature of amines

In the simplest method, amine is named based on the name of the alkyl group combined with the nitrogen atom. To write the common name of an amine, we append the attached amine to the end of the alkyl group name.

If two or three different alkyl groups are present in amine, then the name of the small alkyl group is written first and the name of the large alkyl group is written later.

In the IUPAC method, amines are named based on the name of the corresponding alkane. To write the IUPAC name of the primary amines, append the appended amine to the end of the corresponding alkane name, write the entire name of the compound as a single word and display the carbon atom carrying the amine group by the appropriate number.

The IUPAC names of secondary and tertiary amines are written in a similar way, but N — alkyl and N also use N–di alkyl precursors to indicate the presence of other alkyl groups.

Following are the common and IUPAC names of some amines.

CH3NH2 methyl amine Methylamine

CH3CH2NH2 Ethyl Amine Ethylamine

CH3CH2CH2NH2 n-propyl amine 1-Propanamine

(CH3)2CHNH2 iso-propyl amine 2-Propanamine

CH3-NH-CH3 Dimethylamine N-Methylmethanamine

CH3-NH-C2H5 Methylethylamine N-Methyl Ethylamine

(CH3)3N tri-methyl amine N,N-Dimethylmethanamine