Halide tertiary

Substitution can only occur by the Sjjl mechanism, but elimination can occur by either the El or the E2 mechanism. With weak nucleophiles and polar solvents, the Sjjl and El mechanisms compete with each other. For example, 

If we use a strong nucleophile (which can act as a base) instead of a weak one, and if we use a less polar solvent, we favor elimination by the E2 mechanism. Thus, with OH or CN as nucleophiles, only elimination occurs (eqs. 6.5 and 6.7), and the exclusive product is the alkene. 

Because the tertiary carbon is too hindered sterically for 5 2 attack (eq. 6.11), substitution does not compete with elimination. 

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These reactions follow first-order kinetics and proceed with racemisalion if the reaction site is an optically active centre. For alkyl halides nucleophilic substitution proceeds easily primary halides favour Sn2 mechanisms and tertiary halides favour S 1 mechanisms. Aryl halides undergo nucleophilic substitution with difficulty and sometimes involve aryne intermediates. 

The reaction is applicable to primary and secondary halides only tertiary halides do not react. 

Alkyl chlorides react slowly and the yield of the derivative is poor. Tertiary halides give anomalous results. 

The unstable CH TiCl [12747-38-8] from (CH3 )2 2n + TiCl forms stable complexes with such donors as (CH2)2NCH2CH2N(CH2)2, THF, and sparteine, which methylate carbonyl groups stereoselectively. They give 80% of the isomer shown and 20% of the diastereomer this is considerably more selective than the mote active CH MgBt (201). Such complexes or CH2Ti(OC2H2 methylate tertiary halides or ethers (202) as follows ... 

A related tert-butylation procedure in which the silyl enol ether is added to a mixture of titanium tetrachloride and tert-butyl chloride gives rise to distinctly lower yields. This is also the case if the tertiary halide is added to a mixture of silyl enol ether and titanium tetrachloride. ... 

Primary halides are more reactive than secondary compounds quaternary salt formation does not occur with tertiary halides, elimination always occurring to give the hydriodide and an olefln, Also, the larger the alkyl group the slower is the reaction this is shown by the very slow reaction of dodecyl bromide with quinoline, and even butyl iodide is much slower to react than methyl iodide. The longer chain primary halides commonly undergo elimination rather than cause quaternization for example, n-octyl and cetyl iodides give only the hydriodides when heated with 9-aminoacridine. ... 

Alkylation reactions are subject to the same constraints that affect all Sn2 reactions (Section 11.3). Thus, the leaving group X in the alkylating agent R—X can be chloride, bromide, iodide, or tosylate. The alkyl group R should be primary or methyl, and preferably should be allylic or benzylic. Secondary halides react poorly, and tertiary halides don t react at all because a competing E2 elimination of HX occurs instead. Vinylic and aryl halides are also unreactive because backside approach is sterically prevented. 

Thioethers (sulfides) can be prepared by treatment of alkyl halides with salts of thiols (thiolate ions). The R group may be alkyl or aryl and organolithium bases can be used to deprotonate the thiol. As in 10-37, RX cannot be a tertiary halide, and sulfuric and sulfonic esters can be used instead of halides. As in the Williamson... 

Sodium nitrite can be used to form nitro compounds with primary or secondary alkyl bromides or iodides, though the method is of limited scope. Silver nitrite gives nitro compounds only when RX is a primary bromide or iodide. Nitrite esters are an important side product in all these cases (10-33) and become the major product (by an SnI mechanism) when secondary or tertiary halides are treated with silver nitrite. 

Halide exchange, sometimes call the Finkelstein reaction, is an equilibrium process, but it is often possible to shift the equilibrium." The reaction is most often applied to the preparation of iodides and fluorides. Iodides can be prepared from chlorides or bromides by taking advantage of the fact that sodium iodide, but not the bromide or chloride, is soluble in acetone. When an alkyl chloride or bromide is treated with a solution of sodium iodide in acetone, the equilibrium is shifted by the precipitation of sodium chloride or bromide. Since the mechanism is Sn2, the reaction is much more successful for primary halides than for secondary or tertiary halides sodium iodide in acetone can be used as a test for primary bromides or chlorides. Tertiary chlorides can be converted to iodides by treatment with excess Nal in CS2, with ZnCl2 as catalyst. " Vinylic bromides give vinylic iodides with retention of configuration when treated with KI and a nickel bromide-zinc catalyst," or with KI and Cul in hot HMPA." ... 

This has also been accomplished with concentrated H2SO4 saturated with CO. Not surprisingly, only tertiary halides perform satisfactorily secondary halides give mostly rearrangement products. An analogous reaction takes place with alkanes possessing a tertiary hydrogen, for example. 

The method is quite useful for particularly active alkyl halides such as allylic, benzylic, and propargylic halides, and for a-halo ethers and esters, but is not very serviceable for ordinary primary and secondary halides. Tertiary halides do not give the reaction at all since, with respect to the halide, this is nucleophilic substitution and elimination predominates. The reaction can also be applied to activated aryl halides (such as 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene see Chapter 13), to epoxides, " and to activated alkenes such as acrylonitrile. The latter is a Michael type reaction (p. 976) with respect to the alkene. 

Tertiary halides undergo elimination most easily. Eliminations of chlorides, bromides, and iodides follow Zaitsev s rule, except for a few cases where steric effects are important (for an example, see p. 1316). Eliminations of fluorides follow Hofmann s rule (p. 1316). 

One phase of these studies involved steric assistance to ionization in highly branched tertiary halides and related derivatives. This concept was tested and fully supported by a number of studies. 

For now, let s consider the effect of the substrate on the rate of an El process. The rate is fonnd to be very sensitive to the nature of the starting aUcyl halide, with tertiary halides reacting more readily than secondary halides and primary halides generally do not nndergo El reactions. This trend is identical to the trend we saw for SnI reactions, and the reason for the trend is the same as well. Specihcally, the rate-determining step of the mechanism involves formation of a carbocation intermediate, so the rate of the reaction will be dependent on the stability of the carbocation (recall that tertiary carbocations are more stable than secondary carbocations). 

Cr(II) has been used to bring about dehalogenation of alkyl halides involving the production of alkyl radicals, and details have been provided in a substantive review (Castro 1998). The ease of reduction is generally iodides > bromides > chlorides, while tertiary halides are the most reactive and primary halides the least (Castro and Kray 1963, 1966). 

Silyl enol ethers and silyl ketene acetals also offer both enhanced reactivity and a favorable termination step. Electrophilic attack is followed by desilylation to give an a-substituted carbonyl compound. The carbocations can be generated from tertiary chlorides and a Lewis acid, such as TiCl4. This reaction provides a method for introducing tertiary alkyl groups a to a carbonyl, a transformation that cannot be achieved by base-catalyzed alkylation because of the strong tendency for tertiary halides to undergo elimination. 

By contrast, hydrolysis of the tertiary halide 2-chloro-2-methyl-propane (3,t-butyl chloride) in base is found kinetically to follow equation [2], i.e. as the rate is independent of [eOH], this can play no part in the rate-limiting step. This has been interpreted as indicating that the halide undergoes slow ionisation (in fact, completion of the R->-Cl polarisation that has already been shown to be present in such a molecule) as the rate-limiting step to yield the ion pair R Cle (4) followed by rapid, non rate-limiting attack by eOH or, if that is suitable, by solvent, the latter often predominating because of its very high concentration ... 

Changing the solvent in which a reaction is carried out often exerts a profound effect on its rate and may, indeed, even result in a change in its mechanistic pathway. Thus for a halide that undergoes hydrolysis by the SN1 mode, increase in the polarity of the solvent (i.e. increase in e, the dielectric constant) and/or its ion-solvating ability is found to result in a very marked increase in reaction rate. Thus the rate of solvolysis of the tertiary halide, Me3CBr, is found to be 3 x 104 times faster in 50% aqueous ethanol than in ethanol alone. This occurs because, in the S,vl mode, charge is developed and concentrated in... 

All are tertiary halides so that attack by the S mode would not be expected to occur on (16) or (17) any more than it did on (8) (cf. p. 82). Sn2 attack from the back on the carbon atom carrying Br would in any case be prevented in (16) and (17) both sterically by their cagelike structure, and also by the impossibility of forcing their fairly rigid framework through transition states with the required planar distribution of bonds to the bridgehead carbon atom (cf. p. 84). Solvolysis via rate-limiting formation of the ion pair (SN1), as happens with (8) is... 

Here too, a second alkylation can be made to take place yielding RC=CR or R C=CR. It should, however, be remembered that the above carbanions—particularly the acetylide anion (57)—are the anions of very weak acids, and are thus themselves strong bases, as well as powerful nucleophiles. They can thus induce elimination (p. 260) as well as displacement, and reaction with tertiary halides is often found to result in alkene formation to the exclusion of alkylation. 

They took as their standard reaction the SN1 solvolysis of the tertiary halide, 2-chloro-2-methylpropane (46), and selected as their standard solvent 80% aqueous ethanol (80% EtOH/20% H20) ... 

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