[charzhino]

Im currently doing an organic research project for my final year in chemistry and my supervisor has told me that the aim of this project is to explore the generality of this reaction. The reaction is fairly recently discovered (BHQ reaction), involving a 4 step procedure to produce acenes. I've asked my supervisor but he doesn't really articulate well.

What exactly does generality mean? What do I discuss when Im going to write up my organic report? Thanks.

[Dan]

Dictionary: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/generality

Generality is how general the reaction is. A reaction is considered general if it works well for a wide range of substrates. At the other end of the scale are the "highly substrate dependent" reactions which only work in a limited number of specific cases.

[zeropoint]

In other words, how large and diverse is the scope? Most commonly, this refers to the question of whether or not the reaction tolerates a variety of functional groups (with different stereochemistries, if your being picky) adjacent to the position that the chemistry is acting upon. Also, is the reaction tolerant to various other functional groups elsewhere in the molecule (ie. won't mess with other parts of the molecule). It may also be important to consider if the reaction works under a wide variety of solvents/temperatures/concentrations.

[spirochete]

Another thing you may want to look into - has the reaction been used in many total syntheses?  Especially in late stage synthesis where it would probably have to tolerate a variety of different functional groups.  You could find this in review papers about the reaction.