Answer in Organic Chemistry for Siddharth Gedam #122270
April 21st, 2023
The three key limitations of Friedel-Crafts alkylation are:
- Carbocation Rearrangement – Only certain alkylbenzenes can be made due to the tendency of cations to rearrange.
- Compound Limitations – Friedel-Crafts fails when used with compounds such as nitrobenzene and other strong deactivating systems.
- Polyalkylation – Products of Friedel-Crafts are even more reactive than starting material. Alkyl groups produced in Friedel-Crafts Alkylation are electron-donating substituents meaning that the products are more susceptible to electrophilic attack than what we began with. For synthetic purposes, this is a big dissapointment.