Nitro compound

The structure of the nitro group

Nitro compounds are organic compounds that contain one or more nitro functional groups (-NO₂). They are often highly explosive, especially when the compound contains more than one nitro group and are impure. They are one of the most common explosophores used globally.

Aromatic nitro compounds are typically synthesized by the action of a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids on a suitable organic molecule. Some examples of such compounds are trinitrophenol (picric acid), trinitrotoluene (TNT), and trinitroresorcinol (styphnic acid).

Occurrence in Nature

Chloramphenicol is a rare example of a naturally occurring nitro compound. 2-Nitrophenol is an aggregation pheromone of ticks. Two only known examples of aliphatic nitro compounds include 3-nitropropionic acid found in fungi and plants (Indigofera, e.g.), and nitropentadecene, a defense compound found in termites. Many flavin-dependent enzymes are capable of oxidizing aliphatic nitro compounds to less-toxic aldehydes and ketones. Nitroalkane oxidase and 3-nitropropionate oxidase oxidize aliphatic nitro compounds exclusively, whereas other enzymes such as glucose oxidase have other physiological substrates. ^[1]

Preparation

In organic synthesis various methods exists to prepare nitro compounds.

Aliphatic nitro compounds

Nitromethane, nitroethane, and nitropropanes are produced industrially by treating propane with nitric acid in the gas phase. Nitromethane can be produced in the laboratory by treating sodium chloroacetate with sodium nitrite, forming sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride as byproducts.

Aromatic nitro compounds

In a classic electrophilic substitution reaction, nitric acid and sulfuric acid produce nitronium ion, which reacts with aromatic compounds in aromatic nitration.

• A classic method starting from halogenated phenols is the Zinke nitration.

Reactions

Nitro compounds participate in several organic reactions. Virtually all aromatic amines arise from nitroaromatics.

Aliphatic nitro compounds

• Aliphatic nitro compounds are reduced to amines with hydrochloric acid and an iron catalyst^{[citation needed]}
• Nitronates are a tautomeric form of aliphatic nitro compounds.
• Hydrolysis of the salts of nitro compounds yield aldehydes or ketones in the Nef reaction
• Nitromethane adds to aldehydes in 1,2-addition in the nitroaldol reaction
• Nitromethane adds to alpha-beta unsaturated carbonyl compounds as a 1,4-addition in the Michael reaction as a Michael donor
• Nitroethylene is a Michael acceptor in a Michael reaction with enolate compounds
• In nucleophilic aliphatic substitution sodium nitrite (NaNO₂) replaces an alkyl halide. In the so-called ter Meer reaction (1876) named after Edmund ter Meer.^[2] The reactant is a 1,1-halonitroalkane:

In one study, a reaction mechanism is proposed in which in the first slow step a proton is abstracted from nitroalkane 1 to a carbanion 2 followed by protonation to a nitronate 3 and finally nucleophilic displacement of chlorine based on an experimentally observed hydrogen kinetic isotope effect of 3.3 ^[3]. When the same reactant is reacted with potassium hydroxide the reaction product is the 1,2-dinitro dimer ^[4]

Aromatic nitro compounds

• Reduction of aromatic nitro compounds with hydrogen gas over a platinum catalyst gives anilines. A variation is formation of a dimethylaminoarene with palladium on carbon and formaldehyde:^[5]

• The Leimgruber-Batcho, Bartoli and Baeyer-Emmerling indole syntheses begin with aromatic nitro compounds.

• Indigo can be synthesized in a condensation reaction from ortho-nitrobenzaldehyde and acetone in strongly basic conditions in a reaction known as the Baeyer-Drewson indigo synthesis^[6]

• The presence of nitro groups facilitates nucleophilic aromatic substitution because they are very electron-withdrawing.

See also

• Functional group
• Reduction of nitro compounds
• Nitration
• Nitrite Also an NO₂ group, but bonds differently.

References

1. ^ Nagpal, Akanksha; Michael P. Valley, Paul F. Fitzpatrick, Allen M. Orville (1/5/2006). "Crystal Structures of Nitroalkane Oxidase: Insights into the Reaction Mechanism from a Covalent Complex of the Flavoenzyme Trapped during Turnover". Biochemistry. 
2. ^ Edmund ter Meer (1876). "Ueber Dinitroverbindungen der Fettreihe". Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie 181 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1002/jlac.18761810102. 
3. ^ aci-Nitroalkanes. I. The Mechanism of the ter Meer Reaction M. Frederick Hawthorne J. Am. Chem. Soc.; 1956; 78(19) pp 4980 - 4984; doi:10.1021/ja01600a048
4. ^ 3-Hexene, 3,4-dinitro- D. E. Bisgrove, J. F. Brown, Jr., and L. B. Clapp. Organic Syntheses, Coll. Vol. 4, p.372 (1963); Vol. 37, p.23 (1957). (Article)
5. ^ Organic Syntheses, Coll. Vol. 5, p.552 (1973); Vol. 47, p.69 (1967). http://orgsynth.org/orgsyn/pdfs/CV5P0552.pdf
6. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baeyer-Drewson_indigo_synthesis;Baeyer Drewson Indigo Synthesis

External links

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