Nitrobenzene, alkylation

The object of these studies has been the determination of the degree of association in thiazole and its alkyl derivatives. Various solvents have been used cyclohexane (154), carbon tetrachloride (155, 156), benzene and nitrobenzene (157). 

TABLE rri-53. RATE CONSTANTS (fc x 10 ) FOR THE OUATERNIZATION OF 2-ALKYL AND 2,4-DIALKYLTHIA20LES WITH METHYL IODIDE IN NITROBENZENE AT 25°C (256)... 

Neither Friedel-Crafts acylation nor alkylation reactions can be earned out on mtroben zene The presence of a strongly deactivating substituent such as a nitro group on an aromatic ring so depresses its reactivity that Friedel-Crafts reactions do not take place Nitrobenzene is so unreactive that it is sometimes used as a solvent m Friedel-Crafts reactions The practical limit for Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation reactions is effectively a monohalobenzene An aromatic ring more deactivated than a mono halobenzene cannot be alkylated or acylated under Friedel-Crafts conditions... 

Health and Safety Factors. The toxic effects of the mononitrotoluenes are similar to but less pronounced than those described for nitrobenzene. The maximum allowable concentration for the mononitrotoluenes is 2 ppm (11 mg/m ) (6). Mononitrotoluenes are low grade methemoglobin formers (4) and may be absorbed through the skin and respiratory tract. The toxicity of alkyl nitrobenzenes decreases with an increasing... 

Aluminum chloride dissolves readily in chlorinated solvents such as chloroform, methylene chloride, and carbon tetrachloride. In polar aprotic solvents, such as acetonitrile, ethyl ether, anisole, nitromethane, and nitrobenzene, it dissolves forming a complex with the solvent. The catalytic activity of aluminum chloride is moderated by these complexes. Anhydrous aluminum chloride reacts vigorously with most protic solvents, such as water and alcohols. The ability to catalyze alkylation reactions is lost by complexing aluminum chloride with these protic solvents. However, small amounts of these "procatalysts" can promote the formation of catalyticaHy active aluminum chloride complexes. 

Contaminants and by-products which are usually present in 2- and 4-aminophenol made by catalytic reduction can be reduced or even removed completely by a variety of procedures. These include treatment with 2-propanol (74), with aUphatic, cycloaUphatic, or aromatic ketones (75), with aromatic amines (76), with toluene or low mass alkyl acetates (77), or with phosphoric acid, hydroxyacetic acid, hydroxypropionic acid, or citric acid (78). In addition, purity may be enhanced by extraction with methylene chloride, chloroform (79), or nitrobenzene (80). 

Pyridine lies near one extreme in being far less reactive than benzene toward substitution by electrophilic reagents. In this respect it resembles strongly deactivated aromatic compounds such as nitrobenzene. It is incapable of being acylated or alkylated under Friedel-Crafts conditions, but can be sulfonated at high temperature. Electrophilic substitution in pyridine, when it does occur, takes place at C-3. 

The most thoroughly investigated compounds are the alkyl-pyridines. Coleman and Fuoss compared the reactions of pyridine, 4-picoline, and 4-isopropylpyridine with n-butyl bromide and found a steady increase in the rate in the order given the activation energies are 16.0,15.95, and 15.6 kcal per mole, respectively. Brown and Cahn carried out a detailed study of the reactions of 2-, 3-, and 4-alkyl-pyridines with methyl, ethyl, and isopropyl iodides in nitrobenzene the results are given in Table II. These data show the higher activation... 

Caffeine (128) and dimethyl sulfate in nitrobenzene give the fully methylated dioxo compound 129. In the same way that 2,4-dialk-oxypyrimidines give unstable quaternary salts which decompose to the N-alkyl oxo compounds even at room temperature, the action of... 

Few other reactions of series of substituted pyridines have been investigated extensively. Dondoni, Modena, and Todesco have measured the rate of N-oxidation of a limited series of pyridines and found a good correlation with normal u-values with a p-value of — 2.23. The A-alkylation of pyridines with alkyl iodides in nitrobenzene has been studied by Brown and Cahn and by Clarke and Rothwell. Unfortunately, the only data available are for the parent compound and for alkyl derivatives, and, since the a-values for the various alkyl groups in a given position are substantially constant, this leaves a correlation of only three independent points. However, the rates of A-alkylation of the j8- and y-alkyl derivatives are so nearly equal that it appears as if no correlation existed. Clarke and Rothwell have also studied the alkylation with allyl bromide in nitromethane at various temperatures, and in this case a more extensive series is available. The authors state that no overall Hammett correlation is obtained however, the j8-substituted derivatives fall on one straight line and the y-derivatives on another one with a different slope. The data are shown in Fig. 2. The line for the j8-compounds, p = — 2.53 0.31, r = 0.95, is seen not to be very good the line for the y-derivatives, p = — 1.42 0.06, r = 0.99, is much more satisfactory. It does not seem likely that the discrepancy is due to the intervention of resonance effects, since in this case one would expect the correlation for the y-derivatives to be poorer than that for the j8-analogs. More extensive studies with a wider variety of substituents would seem very desirable. 

Recendy, the VNS intermediates have beo) used for further introducing electrophiles For example, reacdon of the enolate of ethyl 3-chloroptDpionate v/ith nitrobenzene followed by subsequent reacdon v/ith an alkylating agent gives a series of esters bearing a quaternary center fEq 9 36,... 

Similar to the alkylation and the chlorination of benzene, the nitration reaction is an electrophilic substitution of a benzene hydrogen (a proton) with a nitronium ion (NO ). The liquid-phase reaction occurs in presence of both concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids at approximately 50°C. Concentrated sulfuric acid has two functions it reacts with nitric acid to form the nitronium ion, and it absorbs the water formed during the reaction, which shifts the equilibrium to the formation of nitrobenzene ... 

Its principal military use is as a nitrating agent, either in the vapor phase or when dissolved in an inert solvent such as CCI4, for such substances as alkyl nitrites, cellulose and Nitrobenzene (Refs 2a, 8 13)... 

The next and only other major kinetic study was carried out by Jensen and Brown184, who used aluminium chloride as catalyst, nitrobenzene as solvent, benzene- and p-toluene-sulphonyl chlorides as sulphonylating agents and benzene, chlorobenzene, alkyl- and polyalkylbenzenes as aromatic substrates184. 

The most valuable and comprehensive kinetic studies of alkylation have been carried out by Brown et al. The first of these studies concerned benzylation of aromatics with 3,4-dichloro- and 4-nitro-benzyl chlorides (these being chosen to give convenient reaction rates) with catalysis by aluminium chloride in nitrobenzene solvent340. Reactions were complicated by dialkylation which was especially troublesome at low aromatic concentrations, but it proved possible to obtain approximately third-order kinetics, the process being first-order in halide and catalyst and roughly first-order in aromatic this is shown by the data relating to alkylation of benzene given in Table 77, where the first-order rate coefficients k1 are calculated with respect to the concentration of alkyl chloride and the second-order coefficients k2 are calculated with respect to the products of the... 

Since nitrobenzene is a much stronger base than alkyl halides, the concentration of RCI.AICI3 will be small and hence k i will be large and, therefore, much greater than k 2. Equation (180), therefore, reduces to a third-order expression which includes the equilibrium constant k jk i) of the first step and this accounts for the lower rates with 4-nitrobenzyl chloride since it is a poorer base than the 3,4-dichloro compound. 

Brown and McDonald (1966) provided another type of kinetic evidence for these size relationships by determining secondary kinetic isotope effects in reactions of pyridine-4-pyridines with alkyl iodides. For example, the isotopic rate ratio in the reaction between 4-(methyl-d3)-pyridine and methyl iodide at 25-0 C in nitrobenzene solution was determined to be kjyfk = l-OOl, while that in the corresponding reaction with 2,6-(dimethyl-d6)-pyridine was 1-095. (Brown and McDonald (1966) estimate an uncertainty of 1% in the k jk values.) Furthermore, the isotopic rate ratio in the case of the 2-(methyl-d3)-compound increased from 1 030 to 1-073 as the alkyl group in the alkyl iodide was changed from methyl to isopropyl, i.e. the isotope effect increased with increasing steric requirements of the alkyl iodide. 

Secondly, the rates and modes of reaction of the intermediates are dependent on their detailed structure. For example, the stability of the cation radical formed by the oxidation of tertiary aromatic amines is markedly dependent on the type and degree of substitution in the p-position (Adams, 1969b Nelson and Adams, 1968 Seo et al., 1966), and the rate of loss of halogen from the anion radical formed during the reduction of haloalkyl-nitrobenzenes is dependent on the size and position of alkyl substituent and the increase in the rate of this reaction may be correlated with the degree to which the nitro group is twisted out of the plane of the benzene ring (Danen et al., 1969). 

Lithium dialkylcopper reagents can be oxidized to symmetrical dimers by O2 at -78°C in THF. The reaction is successful for R = primary and secondary alkyl, vinylic, or aryl. Other oxidizing agents (e.g., nitrobenzene) can be used instead of O2. Vinylic copper reagents dimerize on treatment with oxygen, or simply on standing at 0°C for several days or at 25°C for several hours, to yield LS-dienes." ... 

The first recorded correlation of dipole moments with substituent constants was observed by Taft (3), who reported results for alkyl cyanides, chlorides, iodides, and tertiary amines. Kross and Fassel (31) have reported the correlations of dipole moments for 4-substituted nitrobenzenes with the simple Hammett equation. Rao, Wohl, and Williams (32) have studied the correlation of dipole moments of disubstituted benzenes with eq. (1) and of monosubstituted benzenes with the equation... 

Cyanide and thiocyanate anions in aqueous solution can be determined as cyanogen bromide after reaction with bromine [686]. The thiocyanate anion can be quantitatively determined in the presence of cyanide by adding an excess of formaldehyde solution to the sample, which converts the cyanide ion to the unreactive cyanohydrin. The detection limits for the cyanide and thiocyanate anions were less than 0.01 ppm with an electron-capture detector. Iodine in acid solution reacts with acetone to form monoiodoacetone, which can be detected at high sensitivity with an electron-capture detector [687]. The reaction is specific for iodine, iodide being determined after oxidation with iodate. The nitrate anion can be determined in aqueous solution after conversion to nitrobenzene by reaction with benzene in the presence of sulfuric acid [688,689]. The detection limit for the nitrate anion was less than 0.1 ppm. The nitrite anion can be determined after oxidation to nitrate with potassium permanganate. Nitrite can be determined directly by alkylation with an alkaline solution of pentafluorobenzyl bromide [690]. The yield of derivative was about 80t.with a detection limit of 0.46 ng in 0.1 ml of aqueous sample. Pentafluorobenzyl p-toluenesulfonate has been used to derivatize carboxylate and phenolate anions and to simultaneously derivatize bromide, iodide, cyanide, thiocyanate, nitrite, nitrate and sulfide in a two-phase system using tetrapentylammonium cWoride as a phase transfer catalyst [691]. Detection limits wer Hi the ppm range. 

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