Dinitrogen pentoxide

Alkenes react with dinitrogen pentoxide in chlorinated solvents to give a mixture of /3-nitro-nitrate, vic-dinitro, vic-dinitrate ester and nitroalkene compounds. At temperatures between -30 °C and -10 °C the /3-nitro-nitrate is often the main product. The /3-nitro-nitrates are inherently unstable and readily form the corresponding nitroalkenes. Propylene reacts with dinitrogen pentoxide in methylene chloride between -10 °C and 0°C to form a mixture of l-nitro-2-propanol nitrate (27 %) and isomeric nitropropenes (12 %). The same reaction with cyclohexene is more complicated.  

At temperatures between 0 °C and 25 °C the vtc-dinitrate ester is often observed in the 

Hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (8) (HTPB) has been treated with dinitrogen pentoxide in methylene chloride. The product (9) is an energetic oligomer but is unlikely to find application because of the inherent instability of /3-nitronitrates. Initial peroxyacid epoxidation of some of the double bonds of HTPB followed by reaction with dinitrogen pentoxide yields a product containing vtc-dinitrate ester groups and this product (NHTPB) is of much more interest as an energetic binder (see Section 3.10).  

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Phosphorus(V) oxide will remove water from acids to give the acid anhydride. For example, if nitric acid is distilled with it. dinitrogen pentoxide is formed ... 

Cobaltilll) nitrate Co(N03)3 has been prepared by the reaction of dinitrogen pentoxide with cobalt(III) fluoride. 

The Raman spectrum of nitric acid shows two weak bands at 1050 and 1400 cm. By comparison with the spectra of isolated nitronium salts ( 2.3.1), these bonds were attributed to the nitrate and nitronium ion respectively. Solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide in nitric acid show these bands , but not those characteristic of the covalent anhydride , indicating that the self-dehydration of nitric acid does not lead to molecular dinitrogen pentoxide. Later work on the Raman spectrum indicates that at —15 °C the concentrations of nitrate and nitronium ion are 0-37 mol 1 and 0 34 mol 1 , respectively. The infra-red spectrum of nitric acid shows absorption bands characteristic of the nitronium ion. The equivalence of the concentrations of nitronium and nitrate ions argues against the importance of the following equilibrium ... 

The two absorption bands, at 1050 and 1400 cm , which appear in the Raman spectra of solutions of nitric acid in concentrated sulphuric acid are not attributable to either of the acid molecules. In oleum the lower band appears at 1075-1095 cm. That these bands seemed to correspond to those in the spectra of anhydrous nitric acid and solid dinitrogen pentoxide caused some confusion in the assignment of the spectrum. The situation was resolved by examining the Raman spectra of solutions of nitric acid in perchloric or selenic acids , in which the strong absorption at 1400 cm is not accompanied by absorption at about 1050 cm . Thus, the band at 1400 cm arises from the nitronium ion, and the band at about 1050 cm can be attributed in the cases of nitric acid and solid dinitrogen pentoxide to the nitrate ion formed according to the following schemes ... 

Dinitrogen pentoxide being the anhydride of nitric acid, is more fully treated below, as are some other systems with which mechanistic studies have been made. 

NITRATION WITH DINITROGEN PENTOXIDE 4.3.1 The State of dinitrogen pentoxide in various solvents... 

Solid covalent dinitrogen pentoxide can be prepared by freezing the vapour with liquid helium. Normally, solid dinitrogen pentoxide exists as (NO2+) (NOj ), showing absorption bands in its Raman spectrum only at 1050 and 1400 cm the structure of this form has been determined by X-ray crystallography. ... 

Solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide in nitric acid or sulphuric acid exhibit absorptions in the Raman spectrum at 1050 and 1400 cm with intensities proportional to the stoichiometric concentration of dinitrogen pentoxide, showing that in these media the ionization of dinitrogen pentoxide is complete. Concentrated solutions in water (mole fraction of NgOg > 0-5) show some ionization to nitrate and nitronium ion. Dinitrogen pentoxide is not ionized in solutions in carbon tetrachloride, chloroform or nitromethane. ... 

Nitration in the presence of strong acids or Lewis acids Solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide in sulphuric acid nitrate 1,3-dimethyl-benzene-4,6-disulphonic acid twice as fast as a solution of the same molar concentration of nitric acid. This is consistent with Raman spectroscopic and cryoscopic data, which establish the following ionisation ... 

When mixed with Lewis acids, dinitrogen pentoxide yields crystalline white solids, which were identified as the corresponding nitronium salts by their infra-red spectra. The reaction with boron trifluoride can be formulated in the following way... 

Solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide have been used in preparative nitrations.Benzene, bromobenzene, and toluene were nitrated rapidly in solutions of the pentoxide in carbon tetrachloride nitrobenzene could not be nitrated under similar conditions, but reacted violently with solid dinitrogen pentoxide. 

The nitration of sensitive compounds with dinitrogen pentoxide has the advantage of avoiding the use of strong acids or aqueous conditions this has been exploited in the nitration of benzylidyne trichloride and benzoyl chloride, which reacted in carbon tetrachloride smoothly and without hydrolysis. 

Kinetic studies of nitration using dilute solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide in organic solvents, chiefly carbon tetrachloride, have provided evidence for the operation, under certain circumstances of the molecular species as the electrophile. The reactions of benzene and toluene were inconveniently fast, and therefore a series of halogenobenzenes and aromatic esters was examined. 

The observation of two limiting kinetic forms was considered to be symptomatic of the occurrence of two reactions, designated non-catalytic and catalytic respectively. The non-catalytic reaction was favoured at higher temperatures and with lower concentrations of dinitrogen pentoxide, whereas the use of lower temperatures or higher concentrations of dinitrogen pentoxide, or the introduction of nitric acid or sulphuric acid, brought about autocatalysis. 

Reducing the temperature or increasing the concentration of reactants, particularly of dinitrogen pentoxide, advanced the onset and increased the intensity of the autocatalysis. Added nitric acid and, to a greater extent sulphuric acid, made the effect more prominent. 

The catalysed reaction was considered to arise from the heterolysis of dinitrogen pentoxide induced by aggregates of molecules of nitric acid, to yield nitronium ions and nitrate ions. The reaction is autocatalytic because water produced in the nitration reacts with the pentoxide to form nitric acid. This explanation of the mechanism is supported by the fact that carbon tetrachloride is not a polar solvent, and in it molecules of nitric acid may form clusters rather than be solvated by the solvent ( 2.2). The observation that increasing the temperature, which will tend to break up the clusters, diminishes the importance of the catalysed reaction relative to that of the uncatalysed one is also consistent with this explanation. The effect of temperature is reminiscent of the corresponding effect on nitration in solutions of nitric acid in carbon tetrachloride ( 3.2) in which, for the same reason, an increase in the temperature decreases the rate. 

In the uncatalysed reaction the fact that added nitrate strongly accelerates the rate to the same extent as other salts makes it improbable that the nitronium ion is the effective electrophile. The authors of the work conclude that covalent dinitrogen pentoxide is the electrophilic... 

Nitronium tetrafluoroborate was first prepared by adding a mixture of anhydrous hydrofluoric acid and boron trifluoride to a solution of dinitrogen pentoxide in nitromethane. Nitric acid can be used in place of dinitrogen pentoxide, and by replacing boron trifluoride by other Lewis-acid fluorides Olah and his co-workers prepared an extensive series of stable nitronium salts. ... 

Nitration in acetic anhydride, or in solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide or of other acyl nitrates in carbon tetrachloride, has been associated with a higher ratio of o- to 7)-substitution in the reactions of certain com-... 

Another reason for discussing the mechanism of nitration in these media separately from that in inert organic solvents is that, as indicated above, the nature of the electrophile is not established, and has been the subject of controversy. The cases for the involvement of acetyl nitrate, protonated acetyl nitrate, dinitrogen pentoxide and the nitronium ion have been advocated. 

The kinetics of nitration of benzene in solutions at c. 20 °C in carbon tetrachloride have been investigated. In the presence of an excess of benzene (c. 2-4 mol 1 ) the rate was kinetically of the first order in the concentration of benzoyl nitrate. The rate of reaction was depressed by the addition of benzoic anhydride, provided that some benzoic acid was present. This result suggested that benzoyl nitrate itself was not responsible for the nitration, but generated dinitrogen pentoxide... 

Because of the chemical similarity between benzoyl nitrate and the acetyl nitrate which is formed in solutions of nitric acid in acetic anhydride, it is tempting to draw analogies between the mechanisms of nitration in such solutions and in solutions of benzoyl nitrate in carbon tetrachloride. Similarities do exist, such as the production by these reagents of higher proportions of o-substituted products from some substrates than are produced by nitronium ions, as already mentioned and further discussed below. Further, in solutions in carbon tetrachloride of acetyl nitrate or benzoyl nitrate, the addition of acetic anhydride and benzoic anhydride respectively reduces the rate of reaction, implying that dinitrogen pentoxide may also be involved in nitration in acetic anhydride. However, for solutions in which acetic anhydride is also the solvent, the analogy should be drawn with caution, for in many ways the conditions are not comparable. Thus, carbon tetrachloride is a non-polar solvent, in which, as has been shown above,... 

Vandoni and Viala examined the vapour pressures of mixtures of nitric acid in acetic anhydride, and concluded that from o to mole-fraction of nitric acid the solution consisted of acetyl nitrate, acetic acid and excess anhydride in equimolar proportions the solution consisted of acetyl nitrate and acetic acid, and on increasing the fraction of nitric acid, dinitrogen pentoxide is formed, with a concentration which increases with the concomitant decrease in the concentration of acetyl nitrate. 

When acetic anhydride was in excess over nitric acid, acetyl nitrate and acetic acid were the only products. When the concentration of nitric acid was greater than 90 moles %, dinitrogen pentoxide, present as (N02+)(N0a ), was the major product and there were only small traces of acetyl nitrate. With lower concentrations of nitric acid the products were acetic acid, acetyl nitrate and dinitrogen pentoxide, the latter species being present as covalent molecules in this organic medium. A mixture of z moles of nitric acid and i mole of acetic anhydride has the same Raman spectrum as a solution of i mole of dinitrogen pentoxide in 2 moles of acetic acid. 

Evidence from the viscosities, densities, refractive indices and measurements of the vapour pressure of these mixtures also supports the above conclusions. Acetyl nitrate has been prepared from a mixture of acetic anhydride and dinitrogen pentoxide, and characterised, showing that the equilibria discussed do lead to the formation of that compound. The initial reaction between nitric acid and acetic anhydride is rapid at room temperature nitric acid (0-05 mol 1 ) is reported to be converted into acetyl nitrate with a half-life of about i minute. This observation is consistent with the results of some preparative experiments, in which it was found that nitric acid could be precipitated quantitatively with urea from solutions of it in acetic anhydride at —10 °C, whereas similar solutions prepared at room temperature and cooled rapidly to — 10 °C yielded only a part of their nitric acid ( 5.3.2). The following equilibrium has been investigated in detail ... 

Nitrations in acetic anhydride, or in solutions containing benzoyl nitrate ( 5.2) or dinitrogen pentoxide ( 4.2.3) have long been associated with the formation from some aromatics of higher proportions of o-nitro-compounds than are formed under other conditions. 

Expt. 27. A solution of dinitrogen pentoxide (0-005 tnol) in acetonitrile (0-4 ml) was added slowly to the aromatic compound (o-oi mol) in acetonitrile (i ml). 

Ph.CH2.OMe, Ph.(CH2)2.0Me, Ph.(CH2)3.0Me (2-3, 3-4, 1-3), does not decrease steadily, but goes through a maximum. These two circumstances point to a specific -interaction in nitrations of the ethers with acetyl nitrate which is important with benzyl methyl ether, more important with methyl phenethyl ether, and not important with methyl phenpropyl ether. This interaction is the reaction with dinitrogen pentoxide already mentioned, and the variation in its importance is thought to be due to the different sizes of the rings formed in the transition states from the different ethers. 

The crucial questions are really three does any one of the ethers really stand out from the others as having a particularly high o p-ratio does such a high 0 p-ratio require a specific o-interaction between the ether and the electrophile to account for it does the identification of a specific o-interaction require the intervention of dinitrogen pentoxide ... 

The facts, in particular the dependence of first-order rate upon the concentration of acetyl nitrate (Appendix),could not be accounted for if protonated acetyl nitrate were the reagent. The same objections apply to the free nitronium ion. It might be possible to devise a means of generating dinitrogen pentoxide which would account for the facts of zeroth- and first-order nitration, but the participation of this reagent could not be reconciled with the anticatalysis by nitrate of first-order nitration. 

In earlier chapters we have been concerned with the identification of the effective electrophile in nitrations carried out under various conditions. We have seen that very commonly the nitronium ion is the electrophile, though dinitrogen pentoxide seems capable of assuming this role. We now consider how the electrophile, specifically the nitronium ion, reacts with the aromatic compound to cause nitration. 

One mode of substitution occurring when the nitrating system consists of dinitrogen pentoxide in organic solvents involves molecular dinitrogen pentoxide as the effective electrophile ( 4.2.3). Evidence that the same electrophile operates when the nitrating system consists of a solution of benzoyl nitrate in carbon tetrachloride has also been given ( 5-2)-... 

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