Organolithium with alkyl halides

Organolithium compounds can readily be prepared from metallic Li and this is one of the major uses of the metal. Because of the great reactivity both of the reactants and the products, air and moisture must be rigorously excluded by use of an inert atmosphere. Lithium can be reacted directly with alkyl halides in light petroleum, cyclohexane, benzene or ether, the chlorides generally being preferred ... 

A variety of organometallic compoundshave been used to couple with alkyl halides. " Organosodium and organopotassium compounds are more reactive than Grignard reagents and couple even with less reactive halides. Organolithium... 

The nucleophilic displacement reactions of organolithium compounds with alkyl halides are second order insofar as the rates have been measured, but there are unexplained examples of autocatalysis and non-reproducable rate constants. The product of the reaction in the case of the methylallyl chlorides is the same mixture regardless of... 

Like magnesium, lithium reacts with alkyl halides, vinyl halides, and aryl halides to form organometallic compounds. Ether is not necessary for this reaction. Organolithium reagents are made and used in a wide variety of solvents, including alkanes. 

In Chapter 17 we introduced nuclrophilic substitution at saturated carbon, using as an example some alkyl bromides. Now, radicals do react with alkyl halides—but not at carbon You ve seen how alkyl halides undergo substitution at bromine with tin radicals. The difference in reactivity between, say, organolithiums and radicals, both of them highly reactive, is nicely illustrated by the way in which they react with enones. 

Dithioesters can be made by a method that would seem odd if you thought only of ordinary esters. Organolithium or Grignard reagents combine well with carbon disulfide (CS2—the sulfur analogue of CO2) to give the anion of a dithioacid. This is a much more nucleophilic species than an ordinary carboxylate anion and combines with alkyl halides to give dithioesters. 

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