Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Sulfonamide hydrolysis

MKSStal - 29-11-2015 at 03:34

I want to ask if it is possible or hard to hydrolyse sulfonamides? Because for me reactions of NaOH with p-toluenesulfonamide (self prepared from chloramine T) gave no ammonia and NaOH with sulfamic acid despite great heat of neutralization reaction made only a little ammonia gas (slight odour and universal indicator paper turned blue) compared to amide with carbonyle group (I probably used urea). Is S-N bond so persistent?

Boffis - 29-11-2015 at 06:48

Sulphamic acid react with nitrous acid (or sodium nitrite) to give sulphuric acid/sulphate ions plus nitrogen and water. I don't know if this would work with aromatic sulphonamides but I don't see why not; certainly worth a try. You would need to add an acid to the sodium nitrite sulphonide mixture since toluenesulphonamide is not acidic in itself. The liberation of nitrogen should indicate that a reaction is taking place.

AvBaeyer - 29-11-2015 at 19:28

A simple google search "hydrolysis of sulfonamides" will give you plenty of information. Great how that works.

AvB