Bryce-Smith

Diphenylmercury [587-85-9] M 354.8, m 125.5-126 . Sublimed, then crystd from nitromethane or ethanol. If phenylmercuric halides are present they can be converted to phenylmercuric hydroxide which, being much more soluble, remains in the alcohol or benzene used for crystn. Thus, crude material (lOg) is dissolved in warm ethanol (ca 150mL) and shaken with moist Ag20 (ca lOg) for 30min, then heated under reflux for 30min and filtered hot. Concentration of the filtrate by evaporation gives diphenylmercury, which is recrystd from benzene [Blair, Bryce-Smith and Pengilly J Chem Soc 3174 7959]. TOXIC. 

Bryce-Smith, Chem. Brit. 25, 783-6 (1989) but see also ibid. p. 1207. 

Submitted by D. Bryce-Smith and E. T. Blues1 Checked by William E. Parham and Siemen Groen... 

The first example of chemically induced multiplet polarization was observed on treatment of a solution of n-butyl bromide and n-butyl lithium in hexane with a little ether to initiate reaction by depolymerizing the organometallic compound (Ward and Lawler, 1967). Polarization (E/A) of the protons on carbon atoms 1 and 2 in the 1-butene produced was observed and taken as evidence of the correctness of an earlier suggestion (Bryce-Smith, 1956) that radical intermediates are involved in this elimination. Similar observations were made in the reaction of t-butyl lithium with n-butyl bromide when both 1-butene and isobutene were found to be polarized. The observations were particularly significant because multiplet polarization could not be explained by the electron-nuclear cross-relaxation theory of CIDNP then being advanced to explain net polarization (Lawler, 1967 Bargon and Fischer, 1967). 

When Br2 reacts with aryl R, at low temperature in inert solvents, it is possible to isolate a complex containing both Br2 and the silver carboxylate see Bryce-Smith, D. Isaacs, N.S. Tumi, S.O. Chem. Lett., 1984, 1471. 

D. Bryce-Smith and A. Gilbert, Rearrangement in Ground and Excited States, ed. P. De Mayo (Academic Press, New York, 1980) Vol. 3. 

D. Bryce-Smith, A. Gilbert, and H. C. Longuet-Higgens, Chem. Comm., 240 (1967). 

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