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In chemistry, a nucleophile is a chemical species that forms bonds by donating an electron pair. All molecules and ions with a free pair of electrons or at least one pi bond can act as nucleophiles. Because nucleophiles donate electrons, they are Lewis bases. Nucleophilic describes the affinity of a nucleophile to bond with positively charged ...
In chemistry, an alkoxide is the conjugate base of an alcohol and therefore consists of an organic group bonded to a negatively charged oxygen atom. They are written as RO −, where R is the organyl substituent. Alkoxides are strong bases [citation needed] and, when R is not bulky, good nucleophiles and good ligands.
Owing to the polar nature of the C−Li bond, organolithium reagents are good nucleophiles and strong bases. For laboratory organic synthesis, many organolithium reagents are commercially available in solution form. These reagents are highly reactive, and are sometimes pyrophoric.
As the name suggests, a non-nucleophilic base is a sterically hindered organic base that is a poor nucleophile.Normal bases are also nucleophiles, but often chemists seek the proton-removing ability of a base without any other functions.
The methoxide anion, for example, is both a strong base and nucleophile because it is a methyl nucleophile, and is thus very much unhindered. tert -Butoxide , on the other hand, is a strong base, but a poor nucleophile, because of its three methyl groups hindering its approach to the carbon.
A good measure of anion stability is the pK a of an anion's conjugate acid ... strong bases such as OH ... very strong nucleophiles like Ph 2 P ...
The nucleophile may be electrically neutral or negatively charged, whereas the substrate is typically neutral or positively charged. An example of nucleophilic substitution is the hydrolysis of an alkyl bromide , R-Br under basic conditions, where the attacking nucleophile is hydroxyl ( OH − ) and the leaving group is bromide ( Br − ).
Butyllithium is a strong base (pK b ≈ -36), but it is also a powerful nucleophile and reductant, depending on the other reactants. Furthermore, in addition to being a strong nucleophile, n -BuLi binds to aprotic Lewis bases, such as ethers and tertiary amines , which partially disaggregate the clusters by binding to the lithium centers.