Sodium Azide General Properties

The solid sodium azide has a high density (characteristic of solids) and thus occupies a small volume. It can easily be stored in the center of a steering wheel or in the dashboard. The rate of the detonation is very rapid. In milliseconds it produces three moles of N2 gas for every two moles of NaN3. The N2 gas occupies a relatively large volume because its density is low. This is a general property of gases. 

The properties of chlorine azide resemble those of bromine azide. Pon-sold has taken advantage of the stronger carbon-chlorine bond, i.e., the resistance to elimination, in the chloro azide adducts and thus synthesized several steroidal aziridines. 5a-Chloro-6 -azidocholestan-3 -ol (101) can be converted into 5, 6 -iminocholestan-3l -ol (102) in almost quantitative yield with lithium aluminum hydride. It is noteworthy that this aziridine cannot be synthesized by the more general mesyloxyazide route. Addition of chlorine azide to testosterone followed by acetylation gives both a cis- and a trans-2iddMct from which 4/S-chloro-17/S-hydroxy-5a-azidoandrostan-3-one acetate (104) is obtained by fractional crystallization. In this case, sodium borohydride is used for the stereoselective reduction of the 3-ketone... 

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