Sciencemadness Discussion Board

In the catalytic hydrogenation of substitued aromatics, which double bonds go first?

unionised - 3-4-2016 at 06:54

"All of the studies I was able to find on this only dealt with the total hydrogenation of an aromatic, not partial,"
I think there's a reason for that.
Once you have reduced the first bond and "broken" the aromaticity, the rest of the bonds get reduced very quickly.
So, for example, if you treated a mole of toluene with a mole of hydrogen you wouldn't get a mole of mixed cyclo dienes .you would get a third of a mole of methyl cyclohexane (and 2/ moles of unreacted toluene).