hodges - 19-2-2022 at 15:38
I have been watching some YouTube videos where chlorobutanol is prepared. I notice that care is always taken to keep the reaction mixture cold (ice
bath). One video described never allowing the temperature to rise about 7 degrees C.
Why is this cold temperature required? Of course, I understand not wanting to end up with a runaway reaction or boil off the acetone or
trichloromethane. But why couldn't this be done say keeping the temperature below 40 degrees C (as is done in the preparation of tricholormethane,
for example)? Obviously the chlorobutanol itself does not decompose, given that one of the steps in the preparation is to boil off the remaining
acetone. Is there some reaction that only occurs at low temperatures? Some intermediate reaction product that is destroyed at higher temperatures?
draculic acid69 - 19-2-2022 at 21:40
Which butanol? Text butyl,isobutyl,n butyl?
Text butanol can be dehydrated easily to form an alkene.
Other buttons aren't so sensitive.
unionised - 20-2-2022 at 03:26
This one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorobutanol
It's possible that the low temperature reduces the rate of competing reactions like the hydrolysis of chloroform or the condensation of acetone.
[Edited on 20-2-22 by unionised]