From dialkyl ethers

Fig. X-9. Zisman plots of the contact angles of various homologous series on Teflon O, RX , alkylbenzenes (f), n-alkanes , dialkyl ethers , siloxanes A, miscellaneous polar liquids. (Data from Ref. 78.)...

The starting trialkyloxonium salts can be rather simply prepared from the corresponding dialkyl ethers. However, only trimethyl-and triethyloxonium boroflu-orides have been used in the synthesis of nitronates to prepare O-methyl and O-ethyl nitronates, respectively. 

Mehra (1) [Named after the inventor] A process for extracting particular hydrocarbons from natural or synthetic gas streams using solvent extraction into polyalkylene glycol dialkyl ethers. Invented in 1982 by Y. R. Mehra at the El Paso Hydrocarbons Company, Odessa, TX. U.S. Patent 4,421,535. 

The initiation reaction in the polymerization of vinyl ethers by BF3R20 (R20 = various dialkyl ethers and tetrahydrofuran) was shown by Eley to involve an alkyl ion from the dialkyl ether, which therefore acts as a (necessary) co-catalyst [35, 67]. This initiation by an alkyl ion from a BF3-ether complex means that the alkyl vinyl ethers are so much more basic than the mono-olefins, that they can abstract alkylium ions from the boron fluoride etherate. This difference in basicity is also illustrated by the observations that triethoxonium fluoroborate, Et30+BF4", will not polymerise isobutene [68] but polymerises w-butyl vinyl ether instantaneously [69]. It was also shown [67] that in an extremely dry system boron fluoride will not catalyse the polymerization of alkyl vinyl ethers in hydrocarbons thus, an earlier suggestion that an alkyl vinyl ether might act as its own co-catalyst [30] was shown to be invalid, at least under these conditions. 

R" may be alkyl or aryl. For dialkyl ethers, the reaction does not end as indicated above, since R OH is rapidly converted to R OR by the sulfonic acid (reaction 0-16), which in turn is further cleaved to R 0S02R" so that the product is a mixture of the two sulfonates. For aryl alkyl ethers, cleavage always takes place to give the phenol, which is not converted to the aryl ether under these conditions. Ethers can also be cleaved in a similar manner by mixed anhydrides of sulfonic and carboxylic acids733 (prepared as in 0-33). p-Hydroxy alkyl perchlorates734 and sulfonates can be obtained from epoxides.735 Epoxides and oxetanes give dinitrates when treated with N2Os,736 e.g.,... 

Dialkyl ethers can be prepared either from support-bound electrophiles or from support-bound alcohols. Table 7.9 lists illustrative examples of the preparation of dialkyl ethers from support-bound electrophiles. 

Table 7.9. Solid-phase synthesis of dialkyl ethers from support-bound electrophiles.

Alternatively, alkyl aryl ethers can be prepared from support-bound aliphatic alcohols by Mitsunobu etherification with phenols (Table 7.13). In this variant of the Mit-sunobu reaction, the presence of residual methanol or ethanol is less critical than in the etherification of support-bound phenols, because no dialkyl ethers can be generated by the Mitsunobu reaction. For this reason, good results will also be obtained if the reaction mixture is allowed to warm upon mixing DEAD and the phosphine. Both triphenyl- and tributylphosphine can be used as the phosphine component. Tributyl-phosphine is a liquid and generally does not give rise to insoluble precipitates. This reagent must, however, be handled with care because it readily ignites in air when absorbed on paper. 

With acyclic ethers. In a study of THF polymerization using PFjT gegenions Dreyfuss (25) show that in the presence of dialkyl ethers chain transfer occurs and continues to occur after equilibrium is reached. The ultimate conversion to polymer is not affected but the intrinsic viscosity of the polymer decreases with time (Fig. 6). The reaction involved is essentially the reverse of the initiation reaction with trialkyl oxonium salts (equation 5). In the case of transfer the dialkyl ether reacts with the propagating oxonium ion to give a trialkyl oxonium ion which has one long chain alkyl and two short alkyls derived from the ether. 

Polarizability-Kow Relationships Molar polarizabilities can be derived from molecular orbital (MO) calculations by the complete neglect of differential overlap (CNDO) method [42]. The following correlation has been found for polar compounds that contain either hydrogen-bond-accepting or hydrogen-bond-donating groups (alkanols, alkanones, dialkyl ethers, alkanenitriles) ... 

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