Haloforms chloroform

When a base is used with a methy] ketone, the alpha carbon will become completely halogenated. This trihalo product reacts further with the base to produce a carboxylic acid and a haloform (chloroform, CHCI j bromoform, CHBr, or iodoform, CHIj). This is called the Haloform Reaction. 

If excess base and halogen are used, a methyl ketone is triply hali genated and then cleaved by base in the haloform reaction. The produc are a carboxylic acid plus a so-called haloform (chloroform, CHClg bromo-form, CHBrg or iodoform, CHL<). Note that the. second step of the reaction is a nucleophilic acyl substitution of CX3 by OH. That is, a carbanion acts as a leaving group. 

If excess base and halogen are used, a methyl ketone is triply halogenated and then cleaved by base in the haloform reaction. The products are a carboxylic acid plus a so-called haloform (chloroform, CHCI3 bromoform. 

This IS called the haloform reaction because the trihalomethane produced is chloroform (CHCI3) bromoform (CHBrj) or iodoform (CHI3) depending on the halogen used... 

Efaloform Reaetion. Ethyl alcohol reacts with sodium hypochlorite to give chloroform [67-66-3] (haloform reaction). 

It is exactly the same with the haloform reaction. If chloroform is poured onto the acetone/sodium hydroxide mixture, there can be an explosion whereas incorporating hydroxide in the other two substances would not be dangerous. In this case the risk factor is the high hydroxide concentration. 

Although dealkylation using haloformates has been used with tertiary amines to provide intermediate carbamates, in the case of aromatic amines the reaction requires a large excess of the chloroformate, high temperatures, and long reaction times. For example, see a) J. P. Bachelet, P. Caubere, 7. Org. Chem. 1982, 47, 234 b) R. A. Olofson, D. E. Abbott, 7. Org. Chem. 1984, 49, 2795 c) R. A. Olofson, Pure Appl. Chem. 1988, 60,1715. 

Often compounds of CH2X2 type are called methylene halides, e.g. methylene chloride (CH2CI2), CHX3 type compounds are called haloforms, e.g. chloroform (CHCI3), and CX4 type compounds are called carbon tetrahalides, e.g. carbon tetrachloride (CCI4). Methylene chloride (dichlor-omethane, DCM), chloroform and carbon tetrachloride are extensively used in organic synthesis as nonpolar solvents. 

This sequence is called the haloform reaction because it results in the production of chloroform, bromoform, or iodoform, depending upon the halogen used. The haloform reaction is a useful method for identification of methyl ketones, particularly when iodine is used, because iodoform is a highly insoluble, bright-yellow solid. The reaction also is very effective for the synthesis of carboxylic... 

Exercise 17-12 Trichloromethane (chloroform) at one time was synthesized commercially by the action of sodium hypochlorite on ethanol. Formulate the reactions that may reasonably be involved. What other types of alcohols may be expected to give haloforms with halogens and base ... 

Hine and his co-workers showed in the 1950s by kinetic and trapping experiments that dichloromethylene, CC12> is an intermediate in the reaction of haloforms with base in aqueous solution.144 Scheme 9 depicts for chloroform the mechanism they proposed. If the first step is a rapid equilibrium and k2 is ratedetermining, the observed second-order kinetics are consistent with the mechanism,145 as are a number of other results.146... 

Attempts to apply the thermal decarboxylation reaction in the liquid phase to aromatic halofor-mic acid esters have shown that their reaction is different from that ol the aliphatic haloformates. It was found that evolution of carbon dioxide occurs, but only high boiling products could be isolated.136 On heating in the presence of aromatics and Lewis acids, aryl chloroformates do not react to give chlorinated aromatics with concomitant decarboxylation, but undergo a Friedel-Crafts reaction to give phenyl benzoates.137 Under similar conditions phenyl fluoroformate undergoes only polymerization and carbonate formation.137... 

In the first studies of isotope exchange of the haloforms, general base catalysis could not be clearly observed [164]. In more recent studies of the detritiation of chloroform in aqueous morpholine and piperidine buffers, general base catalysis could not be detected and the reaction was dominated by hydroxide ion catalysis [114]. In this latter study it was assumed that the mechanism of isotope exchange consisted of a slow triton transfer to base (99), viz. 

A value of kH/kD = 1.4 was obtained [114] for the rate of proton transfer compared with deuteron transfer from chloroform to hydroxide ion and this result is similar to the values determined earlier for several haloforms [164, 166]. In the most recent work [171(b)] a value kH /kD = 1.11 0.05 was determined for chloroform. These values are close to those observed for reaction of cyanocarbon acids (though a different base catalyst is involved) and in Sect. 4.3 it was argued that isotope effects as low as these are expected for a transition state in which proton transfer is almost complete. The isotope effect for proton transfer from chloroform was measured using a new and useful method [114]. It can be shown that the ratio of initial rates of uptake of tritium for the first ten per cent of reaction from tritiated water into CHC13 and CDC13 is identical to the primary isotope effect for proton loss (feH /fcD). The procedure can be used for measuring isotope effects on proton transfer from carbon acids to hydroxide ion or buffer catalysts and is more convenient than other methods. Other methods which have been used, for example, involve the comparison of rates of detritiation and dedeuteration or the comparison of rates of bromination for isotopically different acids (RCH and RCD) [113]. 

A trihalo compound may be formed from the halogenation of a methyl ketone. The electron-withdrawing effect of the trihalomethyl group makes the carbonyl group very sensitive to nucleophilic addition. Consequently, in the presence of a mild base the trihalomethyl compound easily decomposes with the formation of chloroform, bromoform or iodoform, depending on the halogen. The other product of the haloform reaction is a carboxylic acid (Scheme 3.86). 

Aldehydes may be converted to ( )-alkenyl halides by the reaction of CrCh with a haloform in THF. The highest overall yields for the conversion were with iodoform, but somewhat higher (E) (Z) ratios were observed with bromoform or chloroform. Other low-valent metals, such as tin, zinc, manganese and vanadium, were ineffective. As the examples in Table 19 indicate, the reaction is selective for the ( )-isomer, except in the case of an a,3-unsaturated aldehyde. In addition, the reaction with ketones is sufficiently slow for chemoselectivity to be observed for mixed substrates. 

Study carefully the pKgS for the haloform series, CHX3— they may not do what you think they should Chloroform is much more acidic than fluoroform even though fluorine is more electronegative (likewise with bromoform and chloroform). The anion CFamust be slightly destabilized because of some backdonation of electrons. The anion from chloroform and bromoform may also be stabilized by some interaction with the d orbitals (there aren t any on fluorine). The conjugate base anion of bromoform is relatively stable— you will meet this again in the bromoform/iodoform reaction (Chapter 21). 

Chloral hydrate is unstable in alkaline solutions, undeigo-ing the last step of the haloform reaction to yield chloroform... 

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