Nitro-hydrocarbons reactions

It has been recently described [55d) that aliphatic nitrile oxides can be formed in solution by treating an aliphatic a-nitro-hydrocarbon with phenylisocyanate in the presence of a catalytic amount of tri-ethylamine. Dehydration of the nitro compounds occurs with the con-committant formation of benzoylurea. From nitroethane, the reaction is formulated as follows ... 

When the column chemicals are thermally unstable and decompose exothermically, an excessive bottom temperature can cause a "runaway reaction and sometimes lead to an explosion. Some experiences with such explosions have been reported in distillation of peroxide, nitro, hydrocarbon oxide, and acetylenic compounds (16o, 96, 97, 209a, 275). 

The simpler nitrop>arafIins (nitromethane, nitroethane, 1- and 2-nitroproj)ane) are now cheap commercial products. They are obtained by the vapour phase nitration of the hydrocarbons a gaseous mixture of two mols of hydrocarbon and 1 mol of nitric acid vapour is passed through a narrow reaction tube at 420-476°. Thus with methane at 476° a 13 per cent, conversion into nitro methane is obtained ethane at 420° gives a 9 1 mixture of nitroethane (b.p. 114°) and nitromethane (b.p. 102°) propane at 420° afifords a 21 per cent, yield of a complex mixture of 1- (b.p. 130-6°) and 2-nitropropane (b.p. 120°), nitroethane and nitromethane, which are separated by fractional distillation. 

In mononitration the hazard is due to the extremely violent reaction of the unreacted hydrocarbon with the MA, and to the fact that nitro derivatives of cresols are formed in the process, along with nitro toluenes. The last stage — trinitration — is dangerous due to the drastic conditions of the reaction which requires coned acids and a high temp. The earlier method of trinitration at which temps up to 120° were applied was particularly hazardous. If the mono-nitre toluene hns not b n freed from nitro-cresols, trinitration is still more dangerous, due to the high reactivity of nitrocresols, and their liability to undergo oxidation... 

In the course of the salt synthesis, it was found that a hydrocarbon [3-2], which was formed by an unfavourable cation-anion combination reaction, dissociates into the original carbocation and carbanion in a polar aprotic solvent (Okamoto et ai, 1985) (1). This was the first example of ionic dissociation of the carbon-carbon a bond in genuine hydrocarbons, although a few cases of heterolytic dissociation of carbon-carbon tr bonds had been reported by Arnett (Arnett et al., 1983 Troughton et al., 1984 Arnett and Molter, 1985) for compounds bearing cyano and nitro groups, e.g. [4-6] and [5-6] as in (2). 

In view of the observations of the ionic dissociation of nitro-cyano compounds, it is hardly surprising that even a hydrocarbon could dissociate ionically into a stable carbocation and carbanion, provided that the medium is polar enough to prevent the recombination reaction and to ensure equilibration. 

Figures I and II show a comparison of the reaction profile for PPY and polymer catalyzed hydrolysis for p-nitrophenylacetate and p-nitrophenylcaproate monitored by the appearance of p-nitro-phenoxide absorption by UV-VIS spectroscopy. These results confirm the effectiveness of the interactions between the hydro-phobic polymer chain and the hydrocarbon portion of the substrate, as it was previously mentioned, in accordance with the observations of Overberger et al (20).

A variety of para-substituted 2-phenyl-2-butanols undergo quick and efficient reductions to the corresponding 2-phenylbutanes when they are dissolved in dichloromethane and a 2-10% excess of phenylmethylneopentylsilane and boron trifluoride is introduced at 0° (Eq. 30).126 Several reactions deserve mention. For example, when R = CF3, use of trifluoroacetic acid produces no hydrocarbon product, even after two hours of reaction time. In contrast, addition of boron trifluoride catalyst provides an 80% yield of product after only two minutes. When R = MeO, both trifluoroacetic acid and boron trifluoride produce a quantitative yield of the hydrocarbon within two minutes. However, when R = NO2, attempts to promote the reduction with either trifluoroacetic acid or even methanesulfonic acid fail even after reaction periods of up to eight hours, only recovered starting alcohol is obtained. Use of boron trifluoride provides a quantitative conversion into 2-(/ -nitrophenyl)butane after only ten minutes. It is significant that the normally easily reducible nitro group survives these conditions entirely intact.126129 Triethylsilane may be used as the silane.143... 

Acceptors of alkyl radicals are known to be very weak inhibitors of liquid-phase hydrocarbon oxidation because they compete with dioxygen, which reacts very rapidly with alkyl radicals. The situation dramatically changes in polymers where an alkyl radical acceptor effectively terminates the chains [3,49], The study of the inhibiting action of p-benzoquinone [50], nitroxyl radicals [51-53], and nitro compounds [54] in oxidizing PP showed that these alkyl radical acceptors effectively retard the oxidation of the solid polymer at concentrations ( 10-3 mol L 1) at which they have no retarding effect on liquid hydrocarbon oxidation. It was proved from experiments on initiated PP oxidation at different p02 that these inhibitors terminate chains by the reaction with alkyl macroradicals. The general scheme of such inhibitors action on chain oxidation includes the following steps ... 

A reaction analogous to the formation of metal ketyls is the formation of negative ion-radicals not only from aromatic nitro compounds but also from aromatic hydrocarbons like naphthalene. These substances are highly colored and exhibit paramagnetic resonance absorption.128... 

The same reaction can be applied, not only to the aromatic parent substances, the hydrocarbons, but also to all their derivatives, such as phenols, amines, aldehydes, acids, and so on. The nitration does not, however, always proceed with the same ease, and therefore the most favourable experimental conditions must be determined for each substance. If a substance is very easily nitrated it may be done with nitric acid sufficiently diluted with water, or else the substance to be nitrated is dissolved in a resistant solvent and is then treated with nitric acid. Glacial acetic acid is frequently used as the solvent. Substances which are less easily nitrated are dissolved in concentrated or fuming nitric acid. If the nitration proceeds with difficulty the elimination of water is facilitated by the addition of concentrated sulphuric acid to ordinary or fuming nitric acid. When nitration is carried out in sulphuric acid solution, potassium or sodium nitrate is sometimes used instead of nitric acid. The methods of nitration described may be still further modified in two ways 1, the temperature or, 2, the amount of nitric acid used, may be varied. Thus nitration can be carried out at the temperature of a freezing mixture, at that of ice, at that of cold water, at a gentle heat, or, finally, at the boiling point. Moreover, we can either employ an excess of nitric acid or the theoretical amount. Small scale preliminary experiments will indicate which of these numerous modifications may be expected to yield the best results. Since nitro-compounds are usually insoluble or sparingly soluble in water they can be precipitated from the nitration mixture by dilution with water. 

The NH2O formed in the series of chain reactions is anticipated to be a short-lived intermediate which could interact with polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in atmosphere to give nitroarenes or nitro-PAH. 

Nitrobenzenes react with potassium cyanide in the presence of cetyltrimethylammo-nium bromide to yield benzonitriles [71], The reaction also requires the presence of chloro substituents on the ring and at least two nitro groups (Table 2.9). Diazosulphides, ArN=NSPh, are converted into the benzonitriles, ArCN, by a photochemically induced SRN1 reaction with tetra-n-butylammonium cyanide [72, 73], Yields vary from <20% to >70%. Photocyanation of aromatic hydrocarbons has been achieved using tetra-n-butylammonium cyanide in acetonitrile or dichloromethane [74, 75]. 

Chemical/Physical. Under atmospheric conditions, the gas-phase reaction of o-xylene with OH radicals and nitrogen oxides resulted in the formation of o-tolualdehyde, o-methylbenzyl nitrate, nitro-o-xylenes, 2,3-and 3,4-dimethylphenol (Atkinson, 1990). Kanno et al. (1982) studied the aqueous reaction of o-xylene and other aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, w and p-xylene, and naphthalene) with hypochlorous acid in the presence of ammonium ion. They reported that the aromatic ring was not chlorinated as expected but was cleaved by chloramine forming cyanogen chloride. The amount of cyanogen chloride formed increased at lower pHs (Kanno et al., 1982). In the gas phase, o-xylene reacted with nitrate radicals in purified air forming the following products 5-nitro-2-methyltoluene and 6-nitro-2-methyltoluene, o-methylbenzaldehyde, and an aryl nitrate (Chiodini et ah, 1993). 

In many of the cases studied a nitro-group is present as a substituent in the aromatic reactant and one gets the impression that this is favourable to the reaction. On the other hand, quite a few examples are known where no nitro-group plays a role, e.g., in the reactions of anisoles (Bcirltrop et al., 1967 Nilsson, 1971 Lok and Havinga, 1973), in the photocyanation of aromatic hydrocarbons (Vink et al., 1972a), and in the photosubstitution of aromatic ketones (Letsinger and Colb, 1972). 

The nitration of aromatic hydrocarbons is one of the most widely studied and well-documented reactions in organic chemistry. Aromatic nitro compounds are of huge industrial importance in the synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs, agrochemicals, polymers, solvents and perfumes, and for the synthesis of other industrially important chemicals containing amine and isocyanate functionality. However, early research into aromatic nitration was fuelled exclusively by their use as explosives and intermediates in the synthesis of dyestuffs. The former is the subject of this chapter. 

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