Liquid ammonia effect

Many initiators, such as alkyl and aryllithium and sodium and lithium suspensions in liquid ammonia, effect the polymerization. For example, acrylonitrile combined with n-butyllithium forms a carbanion intermediate ... 

Solutions of these metals in liquid ammonia effect (i) the reduction of a range of functional groups such as carbonyl and acetylenic and also conjugated and aromatic systems, and (ii) cleavage of benzyl and allyl ethers and thioethers. These reactions are usually carried out by the general procedure of adding the metal to a solution of the substrate in liquid ammonia to which dry methanol or ethanol or t-butanol has been added to provide a ready proton source (alcohols are more acidic than ammonia).34... 

Solutions of alkali metals in liquid ammonia are used in organic chemistry as reducing agents. The deep blue solutions effectively contain solvated electrons (p. 126), for example... 

The liquid ammonia may be slightly cloudy, due to the presence of a little water this has no appreciable effect upon the yield. 

On contact with the skin, liquid ammonia produces severe burns compounded by frostbite due to the freezing effect from rapid evaporation from the skin. 

Most commercial liquid ammonia contains up to several ppm of colloidal iron compounds, possibly the iron oxide catalyst commonly used in manufacturing ammonia. Reduction converts these compounds to colloidal iron which strongly catalyzes the reaction between alcohols and sodium and potassium. The reaction of lithium with alcohols is also catalyzed by iron but to a markedly lesser degree. The data in Table 1-4 illustrate the magnitude of these catalytic effects. The data of Table 1-5 emphasize how less than 1 ppm... 

TABLE 1-4 Effect of Iron on the Rate of Alkali Metal-Alcohol Reactions in Liquid Ammonia"- ... 

Aromatic steroids are virtually insoluble in liquid ammonia and a cosolvent must be added to solubilize them or reduction will not occur. Ether, ethylene glycol dimethyl ether, dioxane and tetrahydrofuran have been used and, of these, tetrahydrofuran is the preferred solvent. Although dioxane is often a better solvent for steroids at room temperature, it freezes at 12° and its solvent effectiveness in ammonia is diminished. Tetrahydrofuran is infinitely miscible with liquid ammonia, but the addition of lithium to a 1 1 mixture causes the separation of two liquid phases, one blue and one colorless, together with the separation of a lithium-ammonia bronze phase. Thus tetrahydrofuran and lithium depress the solubilities of each other in ammonia. A tetrahydrofuran-ammonia mixture containing much over 50 % of tetrahydrofuran does not become blue when lithium is added. In general, a 1 1 ratio of ammonia to organic solvents represents a reasonable compromise between maximum solubility of steroid and dissolution of the metal with ionization. 

This study investigated risks to the public from serious accidents which could occur at the industrial facilities in this part of Essex, U.K. Results are expressed as risk to an individual and societal risk from both existing and proposed installations. Risk indices were also determined for modified versions of the facilities to quantify the risk reduction from recommendations in the report. Nine industrial plants were analyzed along with hazardous material transport by water, road, rail and pipeline. The potential toxic, fire and explosion hazards were assessed for flammable liquids, ammonia, LPG, LNG, and hydrogen fluoride (HE). The 24 appendices to the report cover various aspects of the risk analysis. These include causes and effects of unconfined... 

Solutions of alkali metals in liquid ammonia have been developed as versatile reducing agents which effect reactions with organic compounds that are otherwise difficult or impossible/ Aromatic systems are reduced smoothly to cyclic mono- or di-olefins and alkynes are reduced stereospecifically to frani-alkenes (in contrast to Pd/H2 which gives cA-alkenes). 

The largest industrial use of LiC2H is in the production of vitamin A, where it effects ethynyl-ation of methyl vinyl ketone to produce a key tertiary carbinol intermediate. The acetylides and dicarbides of the other alkali metals are prepared similarly. It is not always necessary to prepare this type of compound in liquid ammonia and, indeed, further substitution to give the bright red perlithiopropyne Li4C3 can be effected in hexane under reflux ... 

Deprotonation of H2O2 yields OOH , and hydroperoxides of the alkali metals are known in solution. Liquid ammonia can also effect deprotonation and NH4OOH is a white solid, mp 25° infrared spectroscopy shows the presence of NH4+ and OOH ions in the solid phase but the melt appears to contain only the H-bonded species NH3 and H202. " Double deprotonation yields the peroxide ion 02 , and this is a standard route to transition metal peroxides. 

The amination of 2-chloropyridine-A-oxide (53) with potassium amide in liquid ammonia yielded a mixture of 2-(55) and 3-amino-pyridine-A-oxide (56) in 5-10% total yield.This rearrangement might be explained by an aryne mechanism involving 2,3-pyridyne-A-oxide (54). Since the structure of 56, with its quaternary nitrogen atom, is more analogous to that of 3-methoxybenzyne (39) than to that of 2,3-pyridyne (26), an orientation effect directing the amide ion to C-3 can be expected here. 

For the exchanges carried out in liquid ammonia, kinetic isotope effects kD kT of 2.3-2.5 have been obtained for reaction of benzene, toluene, and naphthalene and for the reactions of the 2 positions of furan and thiophene with -butoxide in dimethyl sulphoxide somewhat lower values, 1.5 and 1.3, respectively, were obtained591, but whether this was a solvent or a substituent effect is not apparent from the data. 

The catalyst is washed thoroughly with 100 ml. of water and with 200 ml. of absolute methanol to remove all traces of water, after which it is transferred to the flask under nitrogen with a minimal amount of absolute methanol. To be effective the catalyst must be pyrophoric, and extreme care must be taken during this operation to prevent ignition of the methanol or ammonia. The catalyst must not be allowed to become dry or to collect on the wall of the flask above the surface of the liquid ammonia. 

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