Of 2-bromo-3-methylbutane , 2-chlorobutane , 2-chloro-2-methylpropane, which haloalkanes will give 3,4-dimethylhexane when treated with sodium metal (Wurtz reaction)? Write the reaction equation?
1 Answer
Start with 2-chlorobutane.
Explanation:
You could solve this problem by writing the equation for each reactant, and seeing which one gives the desired product.
It is often easier to do a retrosynthesis.
That is, we work backwards from the products to figure out what the starting materials must be.
The Wurtz synthesis is
So, we could write
For your problem, we could write
If you look at the list of starting materials, yours must be
The equation for the reaction is then