Primary alkyl chlorides

The yields and the ratios of the products depends on the scale at which the reactions arc carried out, on the molar ratios of the reactants, and on the nature of the alkyl halide. The yields of alkyl vinyl telluriums are two-times higher for reactions using 0.01 mol of alkyl halide than for reactions using 0.1 mol alkyl halide. The yields of alkyl vinyl telluriums were substantially increased by using a 10 1 molar ratio of tellurium/alkyl halide. The yields decrease in the sequence alkyl bromide alkyl iodide alkyl chloride. Primary and secondary alkyl bromides are equally reactive, tert.-Butyl bromide failed to give tert.-butyl vinyl tellurium2,3. 

Alkyl chlorides. Primary, secondary, and tertiary alcohols are converted into alkyl chlorides when heated somewhat below the boiling point with an excess of the reagent... 

Place a mixture of 0-5 g. of finely powdered thiourea, 0-5 g. of the alkyl halide and 5 ml. of alcohol in a test-tube or small flask equipped with a reflux condenser. Reflux the mixture for a j)eriod depending upon the nature of the halide primary alkyl bromides and iodides, 10-20 minutes (according to the molecular weight) secondary alkyl bromides or iodides, 2-3 hours alkyl chlorides, 3-5 hours polymethy lene dibromides or di-iodides, 20-50 minutes. Then add 0 5 g. of picric acid, boil until a clear solution is obtained, and cool. If no precipitate is obtained, add a few drops of water. RecrystaUise the resulting S-alkyl-iso-thiuronium picrate from alcohol. 

All lation. In alkylation, the dialkyl sulfates react much faster than do the alkyl haHdes, because the monoalkyl sulfate anion (ROSO ) is more effective as a leaving group than a haHde ion. The high rate is most apparent with small primary alkyl groups, eg, methyl and ethyl. Some leaving groups, such as the fluorinated sulfonate anion, eg, the triflate anion, CF SO, react even faster in ester form (4). Against phenoxide anion, the reaction rate is methyl triflate [333-27-7] dimethyl sulfate methyl toluenesulfonate [23373-38-8] (5). Dialkyl sulfates, as compared to alkyl chlorides, lack chloride ions in their products chloride corrodes and requires the use of a gas instead of a Hquid. The lower sulfates are much less expensive than lower bromides or iodides, and they also alkylate quickly. 

Primary alkyl chlorides are fairly stable to fluorine displacement. When fluorinated, 1-chloropropane is converted to 1-chloroheptafluoropropane and 1-chloto-2-methylbutane produces 39% l-chlorononafluoro-2-methylbutane and 19% perfluoro-2-methylbutane. Secondary and tertiary alkyl chlorides can undergo 1,2-chlorine shifts to afford perfluonnated primary alkyl chlorides 2-Chloro-2-methylpropane gives l-chlorononafluoro-2-methylpropane, and three products are obtained by the fluorination of 3-chloropentane [7] (equation 1). Aerosol fluorina-tion of dichloromethane produces dichlorodifluoromethane which is isolated in 98% purity [4 (equation 2). If the molecule contains only carbon and halogens, the picture is different. Molecular beam analysis has shown that the reaction of fluorine with carbon tetrachlonde, lodotrichloromethane, or bromotrichloromethane proceeds first by abstraction of halogen to form a trichloromethyl radical [5]... 

Tetrasubstituted phosphonium halides are just as effective as their ammonium counterparts. A combination of tetraphenylphosphonium bromide and either 18-crown-6 or polyethylene glycol dimethyl ether with spray-dried potassium fluoride converts 4-chlorobenzaldehyde to 4-fluorobenzaldehyde in 74% yield [67] In addition, the halogen of a primary alkyl chloride or bromide is easily displaced by fluorine in aqueous saturated potassium fluoride and a catalytic amount of hexadecyltributylphosphonium bromide [68] (Table 7 Procedure 4, p 194)... 

Secondary and primary alcohols do not react with HCl at rates fast enough to make the preparation of the conesponding alkyl chlorides a method of practical value. Therefore, the more reactive hydrogen halide HBr is used even then, elevated temperatures are required to increase the rate of reaction. 

Because tertiary alcohols are so readily converted to chlorides with hydrogen chloride, thionyl chloride is used mainly to prepare primary and secondary alkyl chlorides. Reactions with thionyl chloride are nonrrally carried out in the presence of potassium carbonate or the weak organic base pyridine. 

If the temperature is not kept below 25°C during the reaction of primary alcohols with p-toluenesulfonyl chloride in pyridine, it is sometimes observed that the isolated product is not the desired alkyl p-toluenesulfonate but is instead the corresponding alkyl chloride. Suggest a mechanistic explanation for this observation. 

Secondary or tertiary alkyl halides are much less reactive. For example an alkyl dichloride with a primary and a secondary chloride substituent reacts selectively by exchange of the primary chloride. The reactivity with respect to the Finkelstein reaction is thus opposite to the reactivity for the hydrolysis of alkyl chlorides. For the Finkelstein reaction on secondary and tertiary substrates Lewis acids may be used," e.g. ZnCla, FeCls or MesAl. 

The second point to explore involves carbocation stability. 2-Methyl-propene might react with H+ to form a carbocation having three alkyl substituents (a tertiary ion, 3°), or it might react to form a carbocation having one alkyl substituent (a primary ion, 1°). Since the tertiary alkyl chloride, 2-chloro-2-methylpropane, is the only product observed, formation of the tertiary cation is evidently favored over formation of the primary cation. Thermodynamic measurements show that, indeed, the stability of carbocations increases with increasing substitution so that the stability order is tertiary > secondary > primary > methyl. 

When a primary alcohol is treated with p-toluenesulfonyl chloride at room temperature in the presence of an organic base such as pyridine, a tosvlate is formed. When the same reaction is carried out at higher temperature, an alkyl chloride is often formed. Explain. 

We ve already studied the two most general reactions of amines—alkylation and acylation. As we saw earlier in this chapter, primary, secondary, and tertiary amines can be alkylated by reaction with a primary alkyl halide. Alkylations of primary and secondary amines are difficult to control and often give mixtures of products, but tertiary amines are cleanly alkylated to give quaternary ammonium salts. Primary and secondary (but not tertiary) amines can also be acylated by nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction with an acid chloride or an acid anhydride to yield an amide (Sections 21.4 and 21.5). Note that overacylation of the nitrogen does not occur because the amide product is much less nucleophilic and less reactive than the starting amine. 

Halide exchange, sometimes call the Finkelstein reaction, is an equilibrium process, but it is often possible to shift the equilibrium." The reaction is most often applied to the preparation of iodides and fluorides. Iodides can be prepared from chlorides or bromides by taking advantage of the fact that sodium iodide, but not the bromide or chloride, is soluble in acetone. When an alkyl chloride or bromide is treated with a solution of sodium iodide in acetone, the equilibrium is shifted by the precipitation of sodium chloride or bromide. Since the mechanism is Sn2, the reaction is much more successful for primary halides than for secondary or tertiary halides sodium iodide in acetone can be used as a test for primary bromides or chlorides. Tertiary chlorides can be converted to iodides by treatment with excess Nal in CS2, with ZnCl2 as catalyst. " Vinylic bromides give vinylic iodides with retention of configuration when treated with KI and a nickel bromide-zinc catalyst," or with KI and Cul in hot HMPA." ... 

Primary alkyl chlorides can be converted to bromides with ethyl bromide, V-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone and a catalytic amount of NaBr," with LiBr under... 

Yet another approach uses electrolysis conditions with the alkyl chloride, Pe(CO)s and a nickel catalyst, and gives the ketone directly, in one step. In the first stage of methods 1, 2, and 3, primary bromides, iodides, and tosylates and secondary tosylates can be used. The second stage of the first four methods requires more active substrates, such as primary iodides or tosylates or benzylic halides. Method 5 has been applied to primary and secondary substrates. 

These reactions proceed more rapidly in polar aprotic solvents. In DMSO, for example, primary alkyl chlorides are converted to nitriles in 1 h or less at temperatures of 120°-140°C.36 Phase transfer catalysis by hexadecyltributylphosphonium bromide permits conversion of 1-chlorooctane to octyl cyanide in 95% yield in 2 h at 105° C.37... 

Ni(acac)2 at 55 °C. Primary alkyl chlorides also undergo this reaction, but at much lower rates than iodides, the reaction taking days rather than hours. 

The numerous straightforward examples of internal displacement reactions leading to isolable cyclic products will not be discussed here, but only, for the most part, those ionization reactions in which a cyclic intermediate or transition state is deduced from the rearranged structure of the product. A well-known example is mustard gas and other alkyl chlorides with sulfur on the /3-carbon atom. Although mustard gas is a primary and saturated alkyl chloride, its behavior is like that of a typical tertiary alkyl chloride. It reacts so fast by a first order ionization that the rate of the usual second order displacement reaction of primary alkyl halides is not measureable. Only the ultimate product, not the rate, is determined by the added reagent.228 Since the effect of the sulfur is too large to be explicable in terms of a carbon sulfur dipole or similar explanation, a cyclic sulfonium ion has been proposed as an... 

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