Nitration with dinitrogen pentoxide

Dinitrogen pentoxide reacts with alkanes in carbon tetrachloride at 0 °C via a radical mechanism to give nitration products which can include nitrate esters.Reactions of alkanes with dinitrogen pentoxide in nitric acid are complex and of little synthetic value. 1-Adamantyl nitrate is one of the products obtained from the photochemical irradiation of a solution of adamantane and dinitrogen pentoxide in methylene chloride. ... 

Dinitrogen pentoxide reacts with propylene in methylene chloride at —25° to give I-nitro-2-propyl nitrate and a mixture of nitrooleflns in which 3-nitropropene... 

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 ... 

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

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 ... 

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. 

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. 

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-... 

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. 

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 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. 

Ingold et al." showed that rates of nitration by benzoyl nitrate in carbon tetrachloride were depressed by the addition of benzoic anhydride. Thus addition of 0.035 M of the anhydride to a solution 2.36 M in benzene and 0.030 M in nitrate decreased the first-order rate coefficient from 44x 10-4 to 20xl0-4. This is consistent with nitration by dinitrogen pentoxide formed via equilibrium (37), viz. 

No satisfactory analysis has been made with acetyl nitrate but the qualitative retarding effect of addition of acetic anhydride100 has been likewise interpreted as resulting from the preformation of dinitrogen pentoxide. 

Nitration with dinitrogen pentoxide (N205) has increased in its importance as an environmentally cleaner alternative to conventional procedures. It might become the nitration method of the future. Dinitrogen pentoxide can be produced either by ozone oxidation of dinitrogen tetraoxide (N204) or electrolysis of N204 dissolved in nitric acid.19... 

Dinitrogen pentoxide (prepared by the oxidation of N204 with 03) in nitric acid is a potent nitration system. It can be used for nitrating aromatic compounds at lower temperatures than conventional system. It is also convenient for preparing explosives that are unstable in nitrating media containing sulfuric acid (Eq. 2.7).20... 

When l,3r5-triazine is allowed to react with dinitrogen pentoxide and quenched with methanol the cis and trans isomers of 13 3-trinitro-2,4,6-trimethoxy-hexahy drotriazine are obtained. Nitration of the triazine in deuterated nitromethane at -10 °C affords the mixture of cis and trans 2,4,6-trinitrato-l,3,5-trinitro-hexahydro-13,5-triazines which are decomposed at room temperature . Hexahydro-13,5-triaryl-133-triazines cyclorevert upon exposure to HC1 gas to give solid arylmethylene iminium chlorides as new versatile reagents... 

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