A comparative study of synthesis and reactivity of nitrogen and phosphorus based organic tribromide reagents

摘要

Organic tribromides have become an important group of reagents in recent years because of their versatility and long shelf life. However, the reagents that have become most popular are the alkyl quaternary ammonium tribromides. Considering the diverse uses of these reagents and their widespread commercial applications it becomes important to incorporate newer tribromides into the existing series, and then comparatively assess their ease of synthesis and reactivity. In an effort to bring focus on the lesser known phosphorus based and pyridinium based reagents, this paper presents two reagents, viz., ethyltriphenyl phosphonium tribromide (ETPPTB) which is a phosphorus-based reagent and cetylpyridinium tribromide (CetPyTB), which is a pyridinium-based reagent, with focus on their methods of synthesis and their efficiencies in bromination and acylation reactions.