A key reaction of aromatic compounds is electrophilic aromatic substitution, where a C-H bond is broken and a new C-E bond (E being an electrophilic atom such as Cl, Br, N...) is formed. When we covered the reactions of alkenes a while back - a lot of reactions! - we saw that the vast … [Read more...]
Introduction To Aromaticity
In this post we introduce "aromaticity", a term for describing a collection of three [note] main properties that distinguish benzene from (hypothetical) cyclohexatriene. Extremely large resonance energy (36 kcal/mol) Delocalized electrons Undergoes substitution rather than addition … [Read more...]
Reaction Friday: Friedel Crafts Acylation
Today's Reaction Friday is about the Friedel Crafts acylation of benzene and other aromatics, an important example of electrophilic aromatic substitution. One thing I forgot to say at the bottom is that there's several different ways of showing how the acyl halide is activated by Lewis acid - … [Read more...]