Aldol Notes PDF
Aldol Notes PDF
Aldol Notes PDF
2. This fairly complex reaction proceeds at a fast rate at room temperature. Both starting
materials, acetone and benzaldehyde, are clear colorless liquids. The product is a
highly colored solid at room temperature. Look at the structure of the product. Why do
you suppose it is colored? (Reread sections 17.11-17.12 of Klein for the answer.) Be
sure to observe and document changes you see over the course of the reaction in your
lab notebook.
3. The product will be isolated via vacuum filtration. Suction (or vacuum or filter) flasks
tip easily. Always clamp flask. Remember to place filter paper in bottom of
Buchner so that it covers all of the holes, wet paper with solvent being used (in
this case water), and turn on vacuum to seat filter paper. After this is done you
may pour in material to be filtered. To do this out of sequence will frequently
result in product being lost to bottom of suction flask. After material has been
sufficiently dried, break suction either by removing Buchner or disconnecting
hose, before turning vacuum off. Here is the apparatus for suction filtration using
a Buchner funnel.
flat filter
paper
Buchner
funnel
s uction
flas k
rubber
tubing
4. A recrystallization of the product will be carried out. The solvent that will be used is
ethyl acetate. If you have forgotten the steps involved in recrystallization then
reread the on-line notes from 2230L concerning recrystallization. The main
purpose of a recrystallization is to purify solid compounds. When impurities are
removed, the mass decreases and the percent yield will lower. Some desired
compound is always lost when carrying out a recrystallization, hence percent
yield will be further lowered. If a recrystallization was successful, the product will
have a narrower melting point range that is closer to the literature value than the
starting material.
5. To carry out the recrystallization, place a 400 mL beaker with about 2.5 inches of
water on a hot plate. Add a clean test tube with a boiling chip and 2/3 full of ethyl
acetate in water to heat. The ethyl acetate boils at 77oC, so be sure the water is
not too hot. Place solid to be recrystallized in 50 mL E. flask and hold in hot
water. With constant shaking, pipette ethylacete from test tube to E. flask until all
of the solid in E. flask has dissolved. The set up will look like the following.
As soon as all of the solid has dissolved, remove small Erlenmeyer flask from water
bath. Let sit undisturbed on counter top to form crystals. Placing in ice will further
reduce the solubility of the solid and increase mass of solid recovered.
6.
A percent yield for both the crude and the recrystallized product will have to be
calculated. This reaction is the first time other than a 1 : 1 :1 stoichiometry has
been encountered in this class. Pay close attention to the stoichiometry when
calculating the theoretical maximum amount of product that can form from both
the benzaldehyde and the acetone. (The sodium hydroxide is a catalyst not a
reactant.)
7. The hydrogen attached to a carbon in the alpha position (adjacent) to a carbonyl has
enhanced acidity. The anion is called an enolate ion. The enolate ion is more stable
than many other carbanions because it has two resonance forms.
8. The reaction mechanism for the aldol condensation between acetone and
benzaldehyde is below. The first step of the mechanism is the formation of an enolate
ion by sodium hydroxide abstracting a hydrogen from a carbon in the alpha position to a
carbonyl.
The enolate ion then acts as a nucleophile and attacks the partially positive carbon of
the carbonyl on the benzaldehyde. This anion then picks up a proton from a water and
forms a beta-hydroxycarbonyl compound.
If the reaction stopped here it would be a single aldol reaction product. This reaction
does not stop here. It readily undergoes a dehydration to form the stable conjugated unsaturated carbonyl product. The new double bond in conjugated with the aromatic
ring and imparts added stability. The resulting product, 4-phenyl-3-butene-2-one, is the
result from a single aldol condensation reaction between benzaldehyde and acetone.
Our reaction today does not stop here, but instead carries out the whole reaction
sequence again on the other carbon of the acetone. First the alpha carbon is
deprotonated.
Then the enolate nucleophile attacks the electrophilic carbon of the carbonyl, forming a
new carbon carbon bond and a beta hydroxyl carbonyl. The hydroxide ion picks up a
hydrogen from water.
In an identical fashion to above, the -hydroxy carbonyl dehydrates and forms a double
bond.
b) Predict the product of the aldol reaction shown. (Again, no water is produced).
O
NaOH
||
2 CH3 CH2 C-H
Answers:
a) To predict the product of the aldol condensation of acetophenone, it helps to
be able to figure out the mechanism. This is the reaction:
O
||
NaOH
CCH 3
The mechanism is predictable. First, make the enolate anion; then add the
enolate anion to the unreacted acetophenone molecule; then perform an acidbase reaction to put a proton on the negatively charged oxygen, and finally
eliminate a water molecule.
O
O
||
| | ..
CCH 3 + OH
CCH 2 + H 2 O
O
||
CCH 2 +
..
O
O
||
|
CCH 2 C
|
CH 3
O
OH
||
|
CCHC
|
|
H
CH 3
O
||
CCH 3
+ H 2O
+ OH
O
O
||
|
CCH 2 C
|
CH 3
O
OH
||
|
CCH 2 C
|
CH 3
+ OH
O
||
CCH=C
|
CH 3
+ H 2 O + OH
b) The key to predicting the product of this aldol reaction is a knowledge of the
mechanism. Are you surprised to hear that?
O
||
2 CH3 CH2 C-H
NaOH
The mechanism begins with an acid-base reaction to form the enolate anion.
The anion with the negative charge on the end of the molecule opposite the
carbonyl group has no resonance forms, is unstable, and therefore is not formed.
The mechanism continues with nucleophilic addition to the carbonyl group, and
finishes with another acid-base reaction. Since it's an aldol reaction and not a
condensation, there is no elimination step.