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Synthesis Of Tert-Butyl Chloride Lab Report

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The objective surrounding the experiment outlined by this report is to perform an SN1 reaction to synthesize tert-butyl chloride while recording the reactivity of the compound with sodium iodide and silver nitrate reagents. Nucleophilic substitution reactions, denoted SN1 or SN2, are characterized by a nucleophile (electron pair donor) reacting with an electrophile (electron pair acceptor) to break a bond at a carbon to form a new bond with that carbon.1 In order for the reaction to take place, a compound or element must break away from the electrophile, so it may accept electrons from the nucleophile.2 The octet rule must not be disobeyed and thus, the leaving group allows space for other electrons to attach. Figure 1.1 (right) shows a typical …show more content…

For this experiment, the nucleophile will be considered the chloride ion from HCl. The chloride ion in this case constitutes a good nucleophile because it is charged with a 1- and is relatively low in electronegativity.5 Since the chloride ion will be donating a pair of its electrons, the fact that it is negatively charge indicates that it indeed has extra electrons to donate and thus its nucleophilic character is greater as a result. Additionally, the electronegativity of the chloride ion is a showing of how willing the ion is to donate elctrons, or rather how tightly the chloride ion holds those electrons to the nucleus. A low electronegativity indicates that the ion is larger in size and allows electrons to float more freely and also donates those outer electrons more

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