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10.3 Preparing Alkyl Halides from Alkenes: Allylic Bromination

  • Page ID
    44225
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    Objectives


    After completing this section, you should be able to
    1. write the equation for the bromination of a symmetrical alkene using N-bromosuccinimide.
    2. predict the product formed when a given symmetrical alkene is treated with N-bromosuccinimide.
    3. identify the reagent, the symmetrical alkene, or both, needed to produce a given allyl halide by allylic bromination.
    4. list the following radicals in order of increasing or decreasing stability: allyl, vinyl, primary alkyl, secondary alkyl, tertiary alkyl, methyl.
    5. explain the ease of forming an allyl radical, and the difficulty of forming a vinyl radical, in terms of the Hammond postulate.

    Key Term


    Make certain that you can define, and use in context, the key term below.


    allylic position

    Study Notes


    Notice that at the moment we are restricting our studies to the allylic bromination of symmetrical alkenes, such as cyclohexene. When we introduce an element of asymmetry, we find that more than one allyl radical can be formed; therefore, we must assess the relative stability of each radical when trying to predict which product will predominate. The method of doing this assessment is described in the next section.


    10.3 Preparing Alkyl Halides from Alkenes: Allylic Bromination is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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