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E. An Industrial Alkylation of Benzene

  • Page ID
    3771
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    This page gives you the facts and simple, uncluttered mechanisms for the electrophilic substitution reaction between benzene and alkenes in the presence of a mixture of aluminium chloride and hydrogen chloride as the catalyst.

    The electrophilic substitution reaction between benzene and ethene

    The facts

    Industrially, alkyl groups can be substituted into a benzene ring using a variant on Friedel-Crafts alkylation. One possibility is that instead of using a chloroalkane with an aluminium chloride catalyst, they use an alkene and a mixture of aluminium chloride and hydrogen chloride as the catalyst.

    This is a cheaper method because it saves having to make the chloroalkane first.

    To put an ethyl group on the ring (to make ethylbenzene), benzene is treated with a mixture of ethene, HCl and aluminium chloride.

    padding.GIFindalkeq1.GIF

    or better:

    padding_inrj.GIFindalkeq2.GIF

    The aluminium chloride and HCl aren't written into these equations because they are acting as catalysts. If you wanted to include them, you could write AlCl3 and HCl over the top of the arrow.

    The formation of the electrophile

    The electrophile is CH3CH2+. It is formed by reaction between the ethene and the HCl - exactly as if you were beginning to add the HCl to the ethene.

    ethhcl.GIF

    The chloride ion is immediately picked up by the aluminium chloride to form an AlCl4- ion. That prevents the chloride ion from reacting with the CH3CH2+ ion to form chloroethane.

    The electrophilic substitution mechanism

    Stage one

    indethm1.GIF

    Stage two

    indethm2.GIF

    The hydrogen is removed by the AlCl4- ion which was formed at the same time as the CH3CH2+ electrophile. The aluminium chloride and hydrogen chloride catalysts are re-generated in this second stage.

    The electrophilic substitution reaction between benzene and propene

    The facts

    The problem with more complicated alkenes like propene is that you have to be careful about the structure of the product. In each case, you can only really be sure of that structure if you work through the mechanism first.

    For example, the propyl group becomes attached to the ring via its middle carbon atom - and not its end one.

    padding_lluw.GIFindpropeq.GIF

    You still need a mixture of aluminium chloride and hydrogen chloride as catalysts.

    The formation of the electrophile

    When the propene reacts with the HCl, the hydrogen becomes attached to the end carbon atom. A secondary carbocation (carbonium ion) is formed because it is more stable than the primary one which would have been formed if the addition was the other way round.

    prophclm1b.GIF

    Because the positive charge is on the centre carbon atom, that is the one which will become attached to the ring.

    The electrophilic substitution mechanism

    Stage one

    indpropm1.GIF

    Stage two

    indpropm2.GIF

    Again, the hydrogen is removed by the AlCl4- ion. The aluminium chloride and hydrogen chloride catalysts are re-generated in this second stage.


    This page titled E. An Industrial Alkylation of Benzene is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Jim Clark.

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