I am trying to prepare ether from 2-Phenylethyl iodide with benzyl alcohol by Williamson Ether Synthesis. I tried NaH method, K2CO3 method for the preparation. But all cases I end up with major unreacted starting material. I feel frustrated of not getting this simple traditional reaction. Please help me .
Which solvent are you using? The reaction rate is quite dependent on the solvent.
Also, some nucleophiles can be somewhat problematic. Addition of a catalytic amount of silver oxide can help.
I used dmf. I tried in thf also. I will try with silver oxide catalysts. Thanks for your suggestion.
With benzyl alcohol potassium carbonate cannot work. You need to use NaH for this. Most likely the problem is either the NaH is spoilt (e.g. wet) or the solvent you are using is wet and reacting with the NaH.
You can consider reacting benzyl bromide with 2-phenylethanol instead, benzyl bromide is much more reactive and can be done using phase transfer catalysts, NaOH in THF/water system.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Chemistry, Organic
- Synthesis