Nitriles from aryl diazonium salts

Arylamines are converted by diazotization with nitrous acid into arenediazonium salts, ArN2+ X-. The diazonio group can then be replaced by many other substituents in the Sandmeyer reaction to give a wide variety of substituted aromatic compounds. Aryl chlorides, bromides, iodides, and nitriles can be prepared from arenediazonium salts, as can arenes and phenols. In addition to their reactivity toward substitution reactions, diazonium salts undergo coupling with phenols and arylamines to give brightly colored azo dyes. 

This route is particularly valuable for substituents that cannot easily be added by electrophilic substitution such as OH or CN. Table 2.2 gives you a selection of reagents. For the addition of CN, Cl or Br, copper (I) derivatives usually give the best results. So the aryl nitrile 46 might come from amine 47 via a diazonium salt and routine disconnections lead us back to toluene. 

Many aryl nitriles are obtained from diazonium salts by treatment with copper(l) cyanide. Hydroxy and amino nitriles are obtained from addition reactions to carbonyl compounds. 

Aromatic nitriles generally cannot be prepared from the unreactive aryl halides (Sec. 25.5). Instead they are made from diazonium salts by a reaction we shall discuss later (Sec. 23.13). Diazonium salts are prepared from aromatic... 

As already mentioned, aromatic nitriles are made, not from the unrcactive aryl halides, but from diazonium salts (Sec. 23.13). 

Treatment of diazonium salts with cuprous, Cu(I), salts generates aryl halides. When 398 reacts with CuCl (cuprous chloride) or CuBr (cuprous bromide), the products are chlorobenzene or bromobenzene via what is probably a radical reaction.29l jhis conversion is known as the Sandmeyer reaction. 2 The use of copper powder rather than cuprous salts for this transformation is often called the Gattermann reaction. 93,292b,c Aryl iodides are also produced from diazonium salts by reaction with potassium iodide (KI) but the actual reactive species may be l3-.294,295 Treatment of aniline derivative 403 with sodium nitrite and HCl followed by treatment with KI, for example, gave a 89% yield of 404.Aryl nitriles are generated under Sandmeyer conditions using cuprous cyanide (CuCN), as in the conversion of 405 to benzonitrile derivative 407 via diazonium chloride, 406. 

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