Electrophilic addition reactions, alkynes hydrogen halides

Alkynes undergo electrophilic addition reactions with hydrogen halides and bromine, but these reactions have limited synthetic utility. However, one reaction of alkynes that is commonly used in organic chemistry is hydration of the carbon-carbon triple bond to give a ketone, a transformation that is catalyzed by mercuric ion in the presence of sulfuric acid (Eq. 11.10). 

Besides the addition of halides and hydrogen-halide adds to alkenes or alkynes, other industrially relevant electrophilic addition reactions involve hydratization reactions (addition of water to alkenes and alkynes, forming alcohols), cationic polymerization (addition of carbocation to an alkene), hydrogenation (addition of hydrogen to alkenes to form alkanes), and Diels-Alder reactions (addition of an alkene to a conjugated diene to form complex, unsaturated hydrocarbon structures). 

The product of the electrophilic addition reaction of an alkyne with HCI is an alkene. Therefore, a second addition reaction can occur if excess hydrogen halide is present. The second addition—like other addition reactions to alkenes— is regioselective the adds... 

When formulating a mechanism for the reaction of alkynes with hydrogen halides we could propose a process analogous to that of electrophilic addition to alkenes m which the first step is formation of a carbocation and is rate determining The second step according to such a mechanism would be nucleophilic capture of the carbocation by a halide ion... 

Alkynes undergo many of the same electrophilic additions as alkenes. A characteristic reaction is a 7t bond acting as a nucleophile to make a new bond with an electrophile. In this section, we study the addition of bromine and chlorine as well as the addition of hydrogen halides. 

Hydrogenolysis (Section 28.7) A reaction that cleaves a o bond using H2 in the presence of a metal catalyst, a Hydrogens (Section 23.1) The hydrogen atoms on the carbon bonded to the carbonyl carbon atom (the a carbon). Hydrohalogenation (Section 10.9) An electrophilic addition of hydrogen halide (HX) to an alkene or alkyne. 

As a center of high electron density, the triple bond is readily attacked by electrophiles. This section describes the resnlts of three such processes addition of hydrogen halides, reaction with halogens, and hydration. The hydration is catalyzed by mercury(II) ions. As is the case in electrophilic additions to unsymmetrical alkenes (Section 12-3), the Markovnikov rule is followed in transformations of terminal alkynes The electrophile adds to the terminal (less snbstituted) carbon atom. 

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