E Stilbene Lab Report

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Discussion: E-stilbene is a molecule molecule consisting of carbon-carbon double bond with a phenyl functional group attached to each carbon on opposite sides of the double bond. Thus, since this molecule is an alkene, the electrophilic addition of bromine causes the bromine to break and add to the carbon carbon double bond. This mechanism essentially can be considered to have two routes, but three different products. One route will use from a three membered ring (cyclic) with a bromine cation, which will in turn from a meso product (Meso-stilbene dibromide) due to the Sn2 (2nd order bimolecular) addition of bromine, as bromine can only attack the carbon from the opposite side. The meso product has a 1R 2S configuration at its stereoisomers. A meso product is one that contains multiple stereocenters, however, can not rotate plane polarized light because it is superimposable on its …show more content…

The second (SN1, unimolecular) mechanistic route using a carbon cation instead of a bromine cation (acyclic). Therefore, in this case the bromine anion is able to add to the carbocation from either above or below, thus leading to a syn addition or anti addition. If the bromine attacks from below, this causes a racemic mixture to form as the product, that is a mixture of equal arts of the RR (D isomer) form and SS (L isomer) form of the product, which are enantiomers of one another. The RR and SS isomers differ in that the bromine molecules are oriented in the same direction in each individual molecule and opposite directions in relation to one another, therefore, the chical centers rotate plane polarized opposite directions with equal magnitude .If the bromine attacks from above, the meso product will be formed.The meso isomer is a diastereomer of both the D and L isomers. Whether the bromine molecule attacks from above or below simply depends on the random chance of the orientation of the bromine when it comes into contact with the

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