Interaction | Reaction | Process     Data Page

Amines can be converted into alkenes by Hofmann elimination.

The procedure involves fully methylating all amine functions to ammonium functions followed by Ag2O catalysed elimination to give the corresponding alkene. If the structure of the alkene could be deduced it was often possible to work out the structure of the original amine (alkaloid). This procedure vital for structural elucidation before spectroscopy.

Generic Organic reaction
R–NH2
  +  
10
CH3I
  +  
Ag2O
         
  +  
(CH3)3N
Reactant Page Go To Go To
1° Amine (generic)     Reactions Using    Reactions Forming
Methyl iodide     Reactions Using    Reactions Forming
Silver oxide     Reactions Using    Reactions Forming
Alkene, tetrasubstituted (generic)     Reactions Using    Reactions Forming
Trimethylamine     Reactions Using    Reactions Forming

Interaction, Reaction, Process defined as:
Elimination
Functional Group Interconvertion
Multistep: LA/B mechanism

© Mark R. Leach 1999 –

Queries, Suggestions, Bugs, Errors, Typos...

If you have any:

Queries
Comments
Suggestions
Suggestions for links
Bug, typo or grammatical error reports about this page,

please contact Mark R. Leach, the author, using mark@meta-synthesis.com