Nitrosatable substrates

Almost any class of reduced nitrogen compound can serve as the nitrosatable precursor of an N-nitroso compound. To make matters worse, every nitrogen coordination state from primary to quaternary has been converted to a nitrosamine. A glance at the list of some of the known nitrosatable substrates given in Table II illustrates what a wide variety of N-nitroso compounds analysts might expect to encounter in our complex environment. 

Table III shows that any of the higher oxidation states of nitrogen can serve as a nitrosating agent. To form a nitrosamine, all that need happen is for a nitrosating agent to encounter a nitrosatable substrate under favorable conditions, which might (but need not) involve acceleration of the reaction rate by one of the chemical or physical agents indicated in Table IV.

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