Hydrobromic acid elimination reaction product

With aqueous dioxane or aqueous acetone as the solvent, the role of the acetate ion is to buffer the hydrobromic acid eliminated during the reaction 300 was then obtained as the major product (70-80%) under these conditions, with just a little (1-6%) of 299 being produced [67JCS(C)239]. 

The prominent role of alkyl halides in formation of carbon-carbon bonds by nucleophilic substitution was evident in Chapter 1. The most common precursors for alkyl halides are the corresponding alcohols, and a variety of procedures have been developed for this transformation. The choice of an appropriate reagent is usually dictated by the sensitivity of the alcohol and any other functional groups present in the molecule. Unsubstituted primary alcohols can be converted to bromides with hot concentrated hydrobromic acid.4 Alkyl chlorides can be prepared by reaction of primary alcohols with hydrochloric acid-zinc chloride.5 These reactions proceed by an SN2 mechanism, and elimination and rearrangements are not a problem for primary alcohols. Reactions with tertiary alcohols proceed by an SN1 mechanism so these reactions are preparatively useful only when the carbocation intermediate is unlikely to give rise to rearranged product.6 Because of the harsh conditions, these procedures are only applicable to very acid-stable molecules. 

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