Friedel-Crafts reaction with alkyl halides

The Friedel-Crafts reaction with alkyl halides (p. 260) or acid chlorides (p. 260) is a well-known example of a reaction which proceeds through carbonium ions formed by this mechanism. 

Friedel and Crafts reaction. An alkyl halide condenses with an aromatic hydrocarbon in the presence of anhydrous aluminium chloride to yield, in the first instance, a hydrocarbon in accordance with the following scheme —... 

Friedeb Crafts reaction Anisole undergoes Friedel-Crafts reaction, i.e., the all rl and acyl groups are introduced at ortho and para positions by reaction with alkyl halide and acyl halide in the presence of anhydrous alurntnlurn chloride (a Lewis acid) as catalyst. 

This is clearly some sort of Friedel-Crafts reaction with an alkyl halide and AICI3 as the reag The alkyl halide forms a cation very easily because of the MeO group. Now we can draw mechanism and we won t worry about the regioselectivity until we have. 

The ability to open the furan ring by oxidation has also been utilized for synthesis of trialkylacetic acids A 2-furoic ester is first subjected to a Friedel-Crafts reaction with a tertiary alkyl halide, and the 5-alkyl-2-furoic acid obtained from the product by hydrolysis is then oxidized by alkaline permanganate to the trialkylacetic acid 154... 

Friedel-Crafts reactions with alkenes are synthetically attractive but, as with alkyl halides, are most useful when stable cations are formed and when done intramolecularly. An internal Friedel-Crafts cyclization with... 

In Friedel-Crafts reactions, benzene is reacted with acyl or alkyl chlorides, in the presence of metal halides as catalysts. The metal halides act as Lewis acids in these reactions. The two types of Friedel-Crafts reactions are alkylation and acylation. 

Friedel-Crafts alkylation has the problem of cation rearrangement, but there is another problem with this reaction. When benzene reacts with 2-bromopro-pane and AICI3, it gives a mixture of 53 (1-methylethylbenzene or isopropylbenzene, also known as cumene), which is the expected product however, it also gives the disubstituted product 54. The latter may be the major product if an excess of 2-bromopropane is used. Therefore, the reaction with alkyl halides may lead to polyalkylation of the benzene ring, which is the second of the two problems noted for Friedel-Crafts alkylation. The only way to explain formation of 54 is via a Friedel-Crafts alkylation of the initially formed product 53 with 2-bromopropane. This result suggests that 53 must react more quickly with the carbocation derived from 2-bromopropane than does benzene. This point will be discussed in more detail later. 

Which of the following alkyl halides would you expect to undergo Friedel-Crafts reaction with rearrangement and which without Explain. 

The Friedel-Crafts Reaction, in which an aromatic hydrocarbon reacts with an alkyl halide under the influence of aluminium chloride ... 

Alkylation of benzene with alkyl halides m the presence of aluminum chloride was discovered by Charles Friedel and James M Crafts m 1877 Crafts who later became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collaborated with Friedel at the Sorbonne m Pans and together they developed what we now call the Friedel-Crafts reaction into one of the most useful synthetic methods m organic chemistry... 

Acidic chloroaluminate ionic liquids have already been described as both solvents and catalysts for reactions conventionally catalyzed by AICI3, such as catalytic Friedel-Crafts alkylation [35] or stoichiometric Friedel-Crafts acylation [36], in Section 5.1. In a very similar manner, Lewis-acidic transition metal complexes can form complex anions by reaction with organic halide salts. Seddon and co-workers, for example, patented a Friedel-Crafts acylation process based on an acidic chloro-ferrate ionic liquid catalyst [37]. 

Yet a final limitation to the Friedel-Crafts reaction is that a skeletal rearrangement of the alkyl carbocation electrophile sometimes occurs during reaction, particularly when a primary alkyl halide is used. Treatment of benzene with 1-chlorobutane at 0 °C, for instance, gives an approximately 2 1 ratio of rearranged (sec-butyl) to unrearranged (butyl) products. 

Ferrocene behaves in many respects like an aromatic electron-rich organic compound which is activated toward electrophilic reactions.In Friedel-Crafts type acylation of aromatic compounds with acyl halides, ferrocene is lO times more reactive than benzene and gives yields over 80%. However, ferrocene is different from benzene in respect to reactivity and yields in the Friedel-Crafts alkylation with alkyl halides or olefins. The yields of ferrocene alkylation are often very low. and the separations of the polysubstituted byproducts are tedious. 

To optimize the alkylation conditions, ferrocene was reacted with allyldimethyl-chlorosilane (2) in the presence of various Lewis acids such as aluminum halides and Group lO metal chlorides. Saturated hydrocarbons and polychloromethanes such as hexane and methylene chloride or chloroform were used as solvents because of the stability of the compounds in the Lewis acid catalyzed Friedel-Crafts reactions. The results obtained from various reaction conditions are summarized in Table IV. 

Apart from the alkyl halide-Lewis acid combination, two other sources of carbo-cations are often used in Friedel-Crafts reactions. Alcohols can serve as carbocation precursors in strong acids such as sulfuric or phosphoric acid. Alkylation can also be effected by alcohols in combination with BF3 or A1C13.37 Alkenes can serve as alkylating agents when a protic acid, especially H2S04, H3P04, and HF, or a Lewis acid, such as BF3 and A1C13, is used as a catalyst.38... 

Many important reactions involve catalysis by Lewis acids or bases. One of the most important of these is the type of reaction carried out by Charles Friedel and James Crafts. These reactions, known as the Friedel-Crafts reactions, actually involve several types of important processes. One of these is alkylation, which is illustrated by the reaction of benzene with an alkyl halide in the presence of A1C13, a strong Lewis acid. 

We have recently shown that metal-exchanged zeolites give rise to carbocationic reactions, through the interactions with alkylhalides (metal cation acts as Lewis acid sites, coordinating with the alkylhalide to form a metal-halide species and an alkyl-aluminumsilyl oxonium ion bonded to the zeolite structure, which acts as an adsorbed carbocation (scheme 2). We were able to show that they can catalyze Friedel-Crafts reactions (9) and isobutane/2-butene alkylation (70), with a superior performance than a protic zeolite catalyst. 

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... 

The mechanism of Friedel-Crafts alkylation with alkyl halides involves initial formation of the active alkylating agent, which then reacts with the aromatic ring. Depending on the catalyst, the solvent, the reaction conditions, and the alkyl halide, the formation of a polarized donor-acceptor complex or real carbocations (as either an ion pair or a free entity) may take place ... 

Inflates of aluminum, gallium and boron, which are readily available by the reaction of the corresponding chlorides with triflic acid, are effective Friedel-Crafts catalysts for alkylation and acylation of aromatic compounds [119, 120] Thus alkylation of toluene with various alkyl halides in the presence of these catalysts proceeds rapidly at room temperature 111 methylene chloride or ni-tromethane Favorable properties of the Inflates in comparison with the correspond 1 ng fluorides or chlorides are considerably decreased volatility and higher catalytic activity [120]... 

Aromatic compounds are usually readily alkylated or acylated by a Friedel-Crafts reaction.150 The combination of reagents used most commonly for aromatic alkylation is an alkyl halide with a strong Lewis acid (Equation 7.65). However, alkenes, alcohols, mercaptans, and a number of other types of organic... 

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