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Topic: Nucleophilicty - hydroxide ion vs. chloride ion  (Read 1658 times)

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Offline PoetryInMotion

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Nucleophilicty - hydroxide ion vs. chloride ion
« on: October 10, 2013, 04:57:40 PM »
Dear wonderful helpers at CF. I have a question about nucleophilicity. I want to compare these two reactions with respect to rate:
 
CH3-I + -OH  :rarrow: CH3-OH + I--

and

CH3-I + Cl-  :rarrow: CH3-Cl + I-.

The solvent could be either a protic or aprotic one, I am interested in both cases. Sadly enough, I must say I am completely lost here. There are so many aspects of this problem which makes me really confused. So I hope you can help me sort this out.

This is what I know about the advantages of the respective nucleophiles:

Hydroxide ion
Less polarizable (i.e. worse stablilization of its negative charge)
Better size of the HOMO for σ*(C-I) interactions.

Chloride ion
Higher and thus more accessible HOMO

I also know that chloride ions are softer than hydroxide ions, and that CH3-I is a rather soft acid. Does that matter?

As for the solvent, I suppose that the chloride ions should be favored by protic solvents and disfavoured by aprotic ones (compared to hydroxide ions).
Undergraduate student majoring in chemistry and mathematics. Former IChO participant.

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