6.3.2

Acylation (A2 Only)

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Acylation

Acylation reactions can be used to produce a variety of organic compounds, like amides.

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Compounds

  • The above compounds are examples of acylated materials.
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Nucleophilic addition-elimination

  • The nucleophilic addition-elimination reaction happens with acyl chlorides and acid anhydrides.
  • It is used to produce amides, carboxylic acids, and esters.
  • The mechanism is on the next slide.
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Mechanism

  • This reaction can also be done with water or ammonia as nucleophile.

Industrial Use of Acylated Molecules

Acylated molecules have many uses in industry.

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Dangers

  • Ethanoyl chloride is a dangerous material.
    • If it gets wet, it will produce HCl gas which burns skin.
    • This is really painful.
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Solutions

  • In industry, and more generally in labs, we would use ethanoic anhydride.
    • Ethanoic anhydride is slightly less reactive but is much safer.
    • It’s more stable, so can be stored easily.
    • It’s cheaper because we don't need to use other compounds to make it (making acid chlorides uses sulfur or phosphorous compounds).
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Aspirin

  • Aspirin is an example of an ester made with ethanoic anhydride.
  • The final step in the synthesis is an esterification reaction. This is depicted above.

Jump to other topics

1Physical Chemistry

2Physical Chemistry 2 (A2 Only)

3Inorganic Chemistry

4Inorganic Chemistry 2 (A2 Only)

5Organic Chemistry 1

6Organic Chemistry 2 (A2 Only)

6.1Optical Isomerism (A2 Only)

6.2Aldehydes & Ketones (A2 Only)

6.3Carboxylic Acids & Esters (A2 Only)

6.4Aromatic Chemistry (A2 Only)

6.5Amines (A2 Only)

6.6Polymers (A2 Only)

6.7Biological Organic (A2 Only)

6.8Organic Synthesis (A2 Only)

6.9NMR Spectroscopy (A2 Only)

6.10Chromatography (A2 Only)

6.11A-A* (AO3/4) - Organic 2

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