Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Chem4u on 05/03/2015 18:07:00

Title: Can Alcohol or Alkenes react with Benzene to form Alkyl benzene?
Post by: Chem4u on 05/03/2015 18:07:00

Can Alcohol or Alkenes react with Benzene to form Alkyl benzene?
And How ?

Title: Re: Can Alcohol or Alkenes react with Benzene to form Alkyl benzene?
Post by: SorryDnoodle on 05/03/2015 22:21:22

Just top of my head: Would't an alcohol(Ethanol) just add a phenyl group to the ring displacing an hydrogen under sulfuric acid?

I'll do some research about it and maybe I will find an answer.

Title: Re: Can Alcohol or Alkenes react with Benzene to form Alkyl benzene?
Post by: chiralSPO on 06/03/2015 00:08:34

No, unfortunately you can't add alkyl chains to benzene just by adding alcohols or alkenes, even with heating and adding strong acid. Benzene is actually quite inert. Some interesting chemistry can happen with transition metal based catalysts and slightly more activated substrates, though. If you start with bromobenzene, various palladium or nickel catalysts will allow reactions with alkenes or alkyl halides and give some alkylated or alkenylated benzene derivatives.

What is it you are hoping to make?