Friedel-Crafts reaction initiators

Further dechlorination may occur with the formation of substituted diphenyhnethanes. If enough aluminum metal is present, the Friedel-Crafts reactions involved may generate considerable heat and smoke and substantial amounts of hydrogen chloride, which reacts with more aluminum metal, rapidly forming AlCl. The addition of an epoxide inhibits the initiation of this reaction by consuming HCl. Alkali, alkaline-earth, magnesium, and zinc metals also present a potential reactivity hazard with chlorinated solvents such as methylene chloride. 

There are relatively few kinetic data on the Friedel-Crafts reaction. Alkylation of benzene or toluene with methyl bromide or ethyl bromide with gallium bromide as catalyst is first-order in each reactant and in catalyst. With aluminum bromide as catalyst, the rate of reaction changes with time, apparently because of heterogeneity of the reaction mixture. The initial rate data fit the kinetic expression ... 

Strategy A Friedel-Crafts reaction involves initial formation of a carbocation, which can rearrange by either a hydride shift or an alkyl shift to give a more stable carbocation. Draw the initial carbocation, assess its stability, and see if the shift of a hydride ion or an alkyl group from a neighboring carbon will result in increased stability. In the present instance, the initial carbocation is a secondary one that can rearrange to a more stable tertiary one by a hydride shift. 

Alkenes can be acylated with an acyl halide and a Lewis acid catalyst in what is essentially a Friedel-Crafts reaction at an aliphatic carbon. ° The product can arise by two paths. The initial attack is by the acyl cation RCO (or by the acyl halide free or complexed see 11-14) at the double bond to give a carbocation ... 

The reaction of various A-tosylated a-amino acids (94) with benzene in concentrated sulfuric acid yielded diphenyl derivatives (95)." The mechanism proposed for the reaction (Scheme 9) involves initial protonation of the carboxyl group to give (96), which suffers decarbonylation to the A-tosyliminium salt (97). This reactive electrophile (97) interacts with benzene to give a monophenyl compound (98) which, via a Friedel-Crafts reaction, interacts with another molecule of benzene to yield the diphenyl compound (95)." Toluene and p-xylene reacted analogously to yield diarylated products. 

To be really satisfactory, a Friedel-Crafts alkylation requires one relatively stable secondary or tertiary carbocation to be formed from the alkyl halide by interaction with the Lewis acid, i.e. cases where there is not going to be any chance of rearrangement. Note also that we are unable to generate carboca-tions from an aryl halide - aryl cations (also vinyl cations, see Section 8.1.3) are unfavourable - so that we cannot nse the Friedel-Crafts reaction to join aromatic gronps. There is also one further difficulty, as we shall see below. This is the fact that introduction of an alkyl substitnent on to an aromatic ring activates the ring towards fnrther electrophilic substitution. The result is that the initial product from Friedel-Crafts alkylations is more reactive than the... 

Disulfides were shown to be intermediates in the iodine oxidation of 1,3-butadiene-l-thiols and related compounds to form thiophenes (56JOC39). Several simple disulfides were converted to thiophene derivatives under these same conditions (64JOC2372). For example, bis(2-biphenyl) disulfide (13) produced dibenzothiophene (14) in 64% yield when heated with iodine in ethylene glycol for one hour. Treatment of (13) in benzene with aluminum bromide gave (14) in 76% theoretical yield, with an equivalent amount of the thiol, 2-biphenylthiol (62JOC4111). Thus the iodine reagent is more efficient, since it oxidizes the mercaptan, formed by the Friedel-Crafts reaction of disulfide on the adjacent aromatic ring, to disulfide for further reaction, and also serves as a catalyst for the initial reaction. 

The effect of solvent on the solubility of the product can be explained on the basis of the general mechanism of a typical Friedel-Crafts reaction. Thus, asphaltene reacts with AlCl3 to form intermediate carbonium ions, which then undergo electrophilic substitution. If substitution occurs within the asphaltene molecule new bonds are formed and, depending on the size of initial fragments, the molecule may grow bigger and, thus, less soluble. 

Naphthalene, anthracene and phenantlirene can be prepared by an intramolecular Friedel-Crafts reaction in which initially a cyclic anhydride reacts with benzene or naphthalene. 

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