search for new reactions studies with aluminium iodide

Abstract

The thesis entitled "Search for New Reactions – Studies with Aluminium Iodide" consists of five chapters. The first chapter explores the scope and limitations of aluminium iodide as an ether-cleaving reagent. Its usefulness for the cleavage of alkyl-alkyl and aryl-alkyl ethers has been examined in three solvents viz. carbon disulphide, benzene, and acetonitrile. A remarkable feature of this reagent is that its ether-cleaving property is highly sensitive to the nature of the solvent. The order of reactivity for different ethers is often reversed by a change of the solvent. The second chapter describes the reaction of sulphonyl chlorides with aluminium iodide. The product is disulphide in most cases, which is formed in almost quantitative yield. Work carried out to elucidate the mechanism of the reaction is described and discussed. Sulphoxides are reduced to sulphides by aluminium iodide and also by the system, aluminium chloride-sodium iodide. The yields are good to excellent. These reductions are described in the third chapter. Exploratory work was carried out to determine the scope and limitations of using aluminium iodide for the following transformations: (a) Conversion of alcohols to iodides. (b) Reduction of carbonyl compounds in the presence of lithium tetrahydridoaluminate. These results are discussed in chapter four. In chapter five, NMR spectra of ?-picoline complexes with different Lewis acids have been recorded. Attempts have been made to find out whether correlation between chemical shift and the strength of the acids could be observed.