Nitric acid and its mixtures

Alkenes can react with nitric acid, either neat or in a chlorinated solvent, to give a mixture of compounds, including v/c-dinitroalkane, jS-nitro-nitrate ester, v/c-dinitrate ester, /3-nitroalcohol, and nitroalkeneproducts. Cyclohexene reacts with 70 % nitric acid to yield a mixture of 1,2-dinitrocyclohexane and 2-nitrocyclohexanol nitrate. Frankel and Klager investigated the reactions of several alkenes with 70 % nitric acid, but only in the case of 2-nitro-2-butene (1) was a product identified, namely, 2,2,3-trinitrobutane (2). 

The reaction of fuming nitric acid with 2-methyl-2-butene (3) is reported to yield 2-methyl-3-nitro-2-butene (4). The reaction of alkenes with fuming nitric acid, either neat or in chlorinated solvents, is an important route to unsaturated nitrosteroids, which assumedly arise from the dehydration of /3-nitroalcohols or the elimination of nitric acid from /3-nitro-nitrate esters. Temperature control in these reactions is important if an excess of oxidation by-products is to be avoided. 

Mixed acid has been reported to react with some alkenes to give /3-nitro-nitrate esters amongst other products.  

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.  

Solutions of acetyl nitrate have also been used for the synthesis of a-nitroketones from enol esters and ethers. °  

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NITRATION OF THE PARENT ALCOHOL 3.2.1 0-Nitration with nitric acid and its mixtures... 

The direct action of nitric acid and its mixtures on the parent alcohol is by far the most important method for the production of nitrate esters on both an industrial and laboratory scale." While such reactions are essentially esterifications they are commonly referred to as 6>-nitrations because the reaction mechanism, involving substitution of hydrogen for a nitro group, is not dissimilar to other nitrations and frequently involves the same nitrating species. 

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. 

The instability of primary nitramines in acidic solution means that the nitration of the parent amine with nitric acid or its mixtures is not a feasible route to these compounds. The hydrolysis of secondary nitramides is probably the single most important route to primary nitramines. Accordingly, primary nitramines are often prepared by an indirect four step route (1) acylation of a primary amine to an amide, (2) A-nitration to a secondary nitramide, (3) hydrolysis or ammonolysis with aqueous base and (4) subsequent acidification to release the free nitramine (Equation 5.17). Substrates used in these reactions include sulfonamides, carbamates (urethanes), ureas and carboxylic acid amides like acetamides and formamides etc. The nitration of amides and related compounds has been discussed in Section 5.5. 

Nitration with concentrated nitric acid or its mixture with sulphuric acid has already been described and several examples will be given in those chapters dealing with the preparation of nitro compounds. Methods more rarely used which have already been applied in practice or may be in future, are described in this chapter. 

As discussed, one of the known methods of synthesis of dialkylnitra-mines involves the reaction of dialkylamides with nitric acid, which leads to the substitution of the acyl group by the nitro group (nitrolysis). However, when nitric acid or its mixtures with acetic anhydride are used, the yield of nitramines is as a rule low and only the use of the HNOj-fFjCCOjjO mixture makes it possible to raise the yield to 90% [118], For preparative purposes, it is more convenient to nitrate the dialkylamides by nitronium salts [119]. The reaction takes place at 20 C in acetonitrile solution. The dialkylnitramines are formed in yields up to 90% and the acyl group is converted into acylium tetrafluoroborate. 

Aromatic nitration is important because it is a convenient way of adding a nitrogen substituent to the ring and because it stops cleanly after one nitro group has been added. Double nitration of benzene is possible but stronger conditions must be used—fuming nitric acid instead of normal concentrated nitric acid—and the mixture must be refluxed at around 100 °C. 

Benzene. Add 0 5 ml. of benzene slowly and with shaking and cooling to a mixture of 4 ml. each of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids. Heat the mixture carefully until it just boils, cool and pour into excess of cold water. Filter oflF the precipitate, wash it free from acid and recrystalhse it from dilute alcohol. m-Dinitrobenzene m.p. 90°, is formed. 

A brief account of aromatic substitution may be usefully given here as it will assist the student in predicting the orientation of disubstituted benzene derivatives produced in the different substitution reactions. For the nitration of nitrobenzene the substance must be heated with a mixture of fuming nitric acid and concentrated sulphuric acid the product is largely ni-dinitrobenzene (about 90 per cent.), accompanied by a little o-dinitrobenzene (about 5 per cent.) which is eliminated in the recrystallisation process. On the other hand phenol can be easily nitrated with dilute nitric acid to yield a mixture of ortho and para nitrophenols. It may be said, therefore, that orientation is meta with the... 

Add 1 g. of the compound to 4 ml. of concentrated sulphuric acid and cautiously introduce, drop by drop, 4 ml. of fuming nitric acid. Warm the mixture on a water bath for 10 minutes, then pour it on to 25 g. of crushed ice (or 25 ml. of ice water). Collect the precipitate by filtration at the pump, and recrystallise it from dilute alcohol. 

Add 25 g. of finely-powdered, dry acetanilide to 25 ml. of glacial acetic acid contained in a 500 ml. beaker introduce into the well-stirred mixture 92 g. (50 ml.) of concentrated sulphuric acid. The mixture becomes warm and a clear solution results. Surround the beaker with a freezing mixture of ice and salt, and stir the solution mechanically. Support a separatory funnel, containing a cold mixture of 15 -5 g. (11 ml.) of concentrated nitric acid and 12 -5 g. (7 ml.) of concentrated sulphuric acid, over the beaker. When the temperature of the solution falls to 0-2°, run in the acid mixture gradually while the temperature is maintained below 10°. After all the mixed acid has been added, remove the beaker from the freezing mixture, and allow it to stand at room temperature for 1 hour. Pour the reaction mixture on to 250 g. of crushed ice (or into 500 ml. of cold water), whereby the crude nitroacetanilide is at once precipitated. Allow to stand for 15 minutes, filter with suction on a Buchner funnel, wash it thoroughly with cold water until free from acids (test the wash water), and drain well. Recrystallise the pale yellow product from alcohol or methylated spirit (see Section IV,12 for experimental details), filter at the pump, wash with a httle cold alcohol, and dry in the air upon filter paper. [The yellow o-nitroacetanihde remains in the filtrate.] The yield of p-nitroacetanihde, a colourless crystalline sohd of m.p. 214°, is 20 g. 

It has long been known that, amongst organic solvents, acetic anhydride is particularly potent in nitration, and that reaction can be brought about under relatively mild conditions. For these reasons, and because aromatic compounds are easily soluble in mixtures of nitric acid and the solvent, these media have achieved considerable importance in quantitative studies of nitration. 

Evidence from the viscosities, densities, refractive indices and measurements of the vapour pressure of these mixtures also supports the above conclusions. Acetyl nitrate has been prepared from a mixture of acetic anhydride and dinitrogen pentoxide, and characterised, showing that the equilibria discussed do lead to the formation of that compound. The initial reaction between nitric acid and acetic anhydride is rapid at room temperature nitric acid (0-05 mol 1 ) is reported to be converted into acetyl nitrate with a half-life of about i minute. This observation is consistent with the results of some preparative experiments, in which it was found that nitric acid could be precipitated quantitatively with urea from solutions of it in acetic anhydride at —10 °C, whereas similar solutions prepared at room temperature and cooled rapidly to — 10 °C yielded only a part of their nitric acid ( 5.3.2). The following equilibrium has been investigated in detail ... 

The mixture was prepared and allowed to achieve equilibrium to it was added an excess of urea which caused the immediate precipitation as urea nitrate of the free nitric acid present. As a result of the sudden removal of the nitric acid from the mixture, the system underwent change to re-establish the equilibrium however, the use of an excess of urea removed the nitric acid as it was produced from acetyl nitrate and acetic acid, and the consumption of acetyl nitrate proceeded to completion. Thus, by following the production of urea nitrate with the time from the addition of urea, the rate of the back reaction could be determined, and by extrapolating the results to zero time the equilibrium... 

In addition to the initial reaction between nitric acid and acetic anhydride, subsequent changes lead to the quantitative formation of tetranitromethane in an equimolar mixture of nitric acid and acetic anhydride this reaction was half completed in 1-2 days. An investigation of the kinetics of this reaction showed it to have an induction period of 2-3 h for the solutions examined ([acetyl nitrate] = 0-7 mol 1 ), after which the rate adopted a form approximately of the first order with a half-life of about a day, close to that observed in the preparative experiment mentioned. In confirmation of this, recent workers have found the half-life of a solution at 25 °C of 0-05 mol 1 of nitric acid to be about 2 days. ... 

Treatment of biphenyl (see Section 11 7 to remind yourself of its structure) with a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid gave two principal products both having the molecular formula C12H9NO2 What are these two products ... 

Acid mixtures containing nitric acid and a strong acid, eg, sulfuric acid, perchloric acid, selenic acid, hydrofluoric acid, boron trifluoride, or an ion-exchange resin containing sulfonic acid groups, can be used as the nitrating feedstock for ionic nitrations. These strong acids are catalysts that result in the formation of nitronium ions, NO" 2- Sulfuric acid is almost always used industrially since it is both effective and relatively inexpensive. 

Oxidation. The synthesis of quinolinic acid and its subsequent decarboxylation to nicotinic acid [59-67-6] (7) has been accompHshed direcdy in 79% yield using a nitric—sulfuric acid mixture above 220°C (25). A wide variety of oxidants have been used in the preparation of quinoline N-oxide. This substrate has proved to be useful in the preparation of 2-chloroquinoline [612-62-4] and 4-chloroquinoline [611 -35-8] using sulfuryl chloride (26). The oxidized nitrogen is readily reduced with DMSO (27) (see Amine oxides). 

Indole can be nitrated with benzoyl nitrate at low temperatures to give 3-nitroindole. More vigorous conditions can be used for the nitration of 2-methylindole because of its resistance to acid-catalyzed polymerization. In nitric acid alone it is converted into the 3-nitro derivative, but in a mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids 2-methyl-5-nitroindole (47) is formed. In sulfuric acid, 2-methylindole is completely protonated. Thus it is probable that it is the conjugate acid which is undergoing nitration. 3,3-Dialkyl-3H-indolium salts similarly nitrate at the 5-position. The para directing ability of the immonium group in a benzenoid context is illustrated by the para nitration of the conjugate acid of benzylideneaniline (48). 

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