Nitration with acidic reagents

Secondary nitramides are relatively stable in highly acidic media and so their synthesis from the direct nitration of A -substituted amides with nitric acid and its mixtures is feasible. The synthesis of primary nitramides from the nitration of A -unsubstituted amides is usually not possible in acidic media, although this class of compounds have no practical value as explosives anyway. 

A solution of fuming or absolute nitric acid in acetic anhydride is another commonly used reagent for the V-nitration of V-alkylamides. Curry and Mason used this reagent to synthesize a series of aliphatic and alicyclic V-nitro-V-alkylcarbamates from the corresponding V-alkylcarbamates. Aromatic ring nitration is observed if aryl groups are present in the carbamate substrate. 

Nitric acid-acetic anhydride reagent has been used to synthesize N,N -Amitro-N,N -ethylenebisacetamide (58) from A, A -ethylenebisacetamide (57) the former is a secondary high explosive and a precursor to the powerful explosive ethylenedinitramine (Section 5.10). It is interesting to note that (58) is not formed when (57) is treated with nitric acid alone or with strong mixed acid. 

The energetic nitramide (60) has been prepared from the nitration of the tris-acetamide (59) with nitric acid and acetic anhydride or trifluoroacetic anhydride. Nitric acid-trifluoroacetic anhydride mixtures are powerful nitrating agents and well suited for amide and urea A-nitration. 

Nitric acid-acetic anhydride mixtures give poor yields for the nitration of amides with groups that hinder the amide nitrogen against electrophilic attack. The use of higher temperatures in these reactions leads to variable amounts of the A-nitroso compound as a by-product.  

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The direct nitration of imidazole with acidic reagents is difficult due to facile nitrogen protonation (pA aH 7). Nitration of imidazoles proceeds in the 4- and 5-positions with the amidine 2-position being quite inert. Imidazole can be directly nitrated to 4,5-dinitroimidazole but no further. 2,4,5-Trinitroimidazole (TNI) can be prepared from the successive nitration of 2-nitroimidazole the latter synthesized from the diazotization of 2-aminoimidazole in the presence of excess sodium nitrite and a copper salt. The nitrative cleavage of polyiodoimidazoles also provides a route to polynitroimidazoles. " ... 

The direct A-nitration of secondary amines with acidic reagents is only possible in the case of substrates of low basicity. However, the presence of catalytic amounts of chloride ion in... 

Concentrated sulphuric acid reddish-brown vapours of nitrogen dioxide, accompanied by pungent acid vapours of nitric acid which fume in the air, are formed on heating the solid nitrate with the reagent. Dilute sulphuric acid has no action (difference from nitrite) ... 

Nitration using this reagent was first investigated, by Francis. He showed that benzene and some of its homologues bromobenzene, benzonitrile, benzoyl chloride, benzaldehyde and some related compounds, and phenol were mono-nitrated in solutions of benzoyl nitrate in carbon tetrachloride anilines would not react cleanly and a series of naphthols yielded dinitro compounds. Further work on the orientation of substitution associated this reagent with higher proportions of o-substitution than that brought about by nitric acid this point is discussed below ( 5.3.4). 

Certain features of the addition of acetyl nitrate to olefins in acetic anhydride may be relevant to the mechanism of aromatic nitration by this reagent. The rapid reaction results in predominantly cw-addition to yield a mixture of the y -nitro-acetate and y5-nitro-nitrate. The reaction was facilitated by the addition of sulphuric acid, in which case the 3rield of / -nitro-nitrate was reduced, whereas the addition of sodium nitrate favoured the formation of this compound over that of the acetate. As already mentioned ( 5.3. i), a solution of nitric acid (c. i 6 mol 1 ) in acetic anhydride prepared at — 10 °C would yield 95-97 % of the nitric acid by precipitation with urea, whereas from a similar solution prepared at 20-25 °C and cooled rapidly to —10 °C only 30% of the acid could be recovered. The difference between these values was attributed to the formation of acetyl nitrate. A solution prepared at room... 

Nitration with concentrated nitric acid degrades chlorins which are sensitive to oxidation. Here nitronium tetrafluoroborate in sulfolane is the reagent of choice. Both mononitrooc-... 

The manuf of NC is similar in that it involves the same nitrating acids as used for TNT, but used to treat cotton linters or wood pulp (raw cellulose) in a series of vats and reactors similar to the ones used for TNT. The crude NC is similarly subjected to a series of w and aq soln washes until it is finally delivered as a purified, fibrous mat — ordinarily wet with w or ale for safety. Again, there are major wastewater streams laden with spent reagents and extracted impurities... 

A further observation is the fact that differences in rates of nitration between the reagents prepared at different temperatures tended to zero as the water concentration of the added nitric acid was decreased to zero73. It has been argued that, since the acid-catalysed hydrolysis of acetic anhydride must be very rapid at 25 °C and removes water which initially competes with acetic anhydride and acetyl nitrate for protons, this removal permits equilibria (30) and (31) to be displaced towards products. The more anhydrous the nitric acid, the less important is this initial hydrolysis of the acetic anhydride and so the difference in the nitrating power of the differently prepared mixtures becomes less. When reagents are mixed at low temperatures, the hydrolysis of the anhydride is very slow, but once this is accomplished, formation of the protonated acetyl nitrate and subsequent nitration is rapid as observed73. 

The rate of the reaction with most reagents is proportional to the concentration of NO2, not to that of other species. When the reagent produces this ion in small amounts, the attack is slow and only active substrates can be nitrated. In concentrated and aqueous mineral acids the kinetics are second order first order each in aromatic substrate and in nitric acid (unless pure nitric acid is used in which case there are pseudo-first-order kinetics). But in organic solvents, such as nitromethane, acetic acid, and CCI4, the kinetics are first order in nitric acid alone and zero order in aromatic substrate, because the rate-determining step is formation of NOj and the substrate does not take part in this. 

It is made by the nitration of hexamine (hexamethylenetetramine), itself prepared from formaldehyde and ammonia. Hexamine was originally nitrated with a large excess of concentrated nitric acid at temperatures below 30°C and the product recovered by adding the reaction liquor to an excess of chilled water. Later the yield was improved by adding ammonium nitrate to the reaction as this reacts with the liberated formaldehyde. A much-used process converts the hexamine first to its dinitrate, which is then reacted with ammonium nitrate, nitric acid and acetic anhydride (the last reagent being re-formed from the product by use... 

Solutions of acetyl nitrate, prepared from fuming nitric acid and acetic anhydride, can react with alkenes to yield a mixture of nitro and nitrate ester products, but the /3-nitroacetate is usually the major product. ° Treatment of cyclohexene with this reagent is reported to yield a mixture of 2-nitrocyclohexanol nitrate, 2-nitrocyclohexanol acetate, 2-nitrocyclohexene and 3-nitrocyclohexene. °/3-Nitroacetates readily undergo elimination to the a-nitroalkenes on heating with potassium bicarbonate. /3-Nitroacetates are also reduced to the nitroalkane on treatment with sodium borohydride in DMSO. ... 

Nitronium tetrafluoroborate is a very efficient reagent for the D-nitration of alcohols and glycols containing both primary and secondary hydroxy functionality (Equation 3.7). Yields of nitrate ester are high and frequently quantitative. 0-Nitration with nitronium salts produces a strong acid and so an acid-binding agent should be present for acid sensitive substrates. 

Despite the amount of research focused on the iV-nitration of amines with nonacidic reagents, the use of conventional acidic reagents based on nitric acid and acid anhydrides has been far more extensive for the synthesis of energetic materials. 

The nitrolysis of hexamine is a direct route to the military high explosives 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane (RDX) and l,3,5,7-tetranitro-13,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane (HMX). " The direct nitrolysis of hexamine with dinitrogen pentoxide in absolute ifitric acid provides RDX in 57 % yield. RDX prepared by this process is exceptionally pure, but other reagents, like ammonium nitrate-nitric acid-acetic anhydride, give much higher yields, partly because they use ammonium nitrate to supplement for ammonium nitrogen deficiency in the reaction. 

The synthesis of HMX from the nitrolysis of hexamine with conventional reagents is far more problematic. However, HMX (25) is synthesized in high yield from the nitrolysis of l,3,5,7-tetraacetyl-l,3,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane (TAT) (23) and l,5-diacetyl-3,7-dinitro-1,3,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane (DADN) (24) with dinitrogen pentoxide in nitric acid. DADN (24) is readily synthesized from the acetolysis of hexamine followed by mild nitration with mixed acid. The synthesis of HMX (25) via the nitrolysis of DADN (24) is now a pilot plant... 

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