Hi there,
I wonder if it is possible to do a chloromethylation on styrene??
The conditions are as follow:
Styrene + paraformaldehyde + HCl + ZnCl2(Cat.) -->
Do you think it will work??
The chloromethylation works well on benzene (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanc_chloromethylation ), but will it work with styrene? will Zinc chloride acts as a cationic initiator to polymerize styrene, instead of being a catalyst in the above equation?