amine
(noun)
Organic compounds or the functional group that contains a basic nitrogen atom with a lone pair.
Examples of amine in the following topics:
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Preparation of 2º & 3º-Amines
- Gives 2º-amines.
- Gives 2º & 3º-amines.
- (iii) Reduction of amide derivatives of 1º & 2º-amines.
- Gives 2º & 3º-amines.
- As with the previous method, 1º-amines give 2º-amine products, and 2º-amines give 3º-amine products.
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Amines
- The prefix "amino-" or the suffix "-amine" is used when naming an amine compound.
- Tertiary amines are amines whose hydrogens have been completely replaced by organic substituents.
- Finally, cyclic amines are those in which the nitrogen has been incorporated into a ring structure, effectively making it either a secondary or tertiary amine.
- Aliphatic amines, which are amines connected to an alkyl chain, display solubility in organic polar solvents.
- Thus, the basicity of an amine can be expected to increase with the number of alkyl groups on the amine.
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Electrophilic Substitution at Nitrogen
- Since this reaction produces HBr as a co-product, hydrobromide salts of the alkylated amine or unreacted starting amine (in equilibrium) will also be formed.
- If a 1:1 ratio of amine to alkyl halide is used, only 50% of the amine will react because the remaining amine will be tied up as an ammonium halide salt (remember that one equivalent of the strong acid HX is produced).
- Both the starting amine and the product amine are nucleophiles.
- Even 3º-amines may be alkylated to form quaternary (4º) ammonium salts.
- As shown in the following equations, 1º and 2º-amines react to give sulfonamide derivatives with loss of HCl, whereas 3º-amines do not give any isolable products other than the starting amine.
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Boiling Point and Water Solubility
- Since 1º-amines have two hydrogens available for hydrogen bonding, we expect them to have higher boiling points than isomeric 2º-amines, which in turn should boil higher than isomeric 3º-amines (no hydrogen bonding).
- Indeed, 3º-amines have boiling points similar to equivalent sized ethers; and in all but the smallest compounds, corresponding ethers, 3º-amines and alkanes have similar boiling points.
- The water solubility of 1º and 2º-amines is similar to that of comparable alcohols.
- As expected, the water solubility of 3º-amines and ethers is also similar.
- Differences associated with isomeric 1º, 2º & 3º-amines and the influence of chain branching
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Reaction of Amines with Nitrous Acid
- Nitrous acid (HNO2 or HONO) reacts with aliphatic amines in a fashion that provides a useful test for distinguishing primary, secondary and tertiary amines.
- Under the acidic conditions of this reaction, all amines undergo reversible salt formation:
- This happens with 3º-amines, and the salts are usually soluble in water.
- The N-nitrosamines formed from 2º-amines are carcinogenic, and are not generally useful as intermediates for subsequent reactions.
- Depending on ring substitution, 3º-Aryl amines may undergo aromatic ring nitrosation at sites ortho or para to the amine substituent.
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Nomenclature and Structure of Amines
- The third and fourth compounds in the row are 2º and 3º-amines respectively.
- This system names amine functions as substituents on the largest alkyl group.
- The simple -NH2 substituent found in 1º-amines is called an amino group.
- Finally, a common system for simple amines names each alkyl substituent on nitrogen in alphabetical order, followed by the suffix -amine.
- Thus, Serotonin and Thiamine are 1º-amines, Coniine is a 2º-amine, Atropine, Morphine and Quinine are 3º-amines, and Muscarine is a 4º-ammonium salt.
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Acidity of Amines
- We normally think of amines as bases, but it must be remembered that 1º and 2º-amines are also very weak acids (ammonia has a pKa = 34).
- pKa is being used as a measure of the acidity of the amine itself rather than its conjugate acid, as in the previous section.
- The same factors that decreased the basicity of amines increase their acidity.
- The first compound is a typical 2º-amine, and the three next to it are characterized by varying degrees of nitrogen electron pair delocalization.
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Preparation of 1º-Amines
- Although direct alkylation of ammonia by alkyl halides leads to 1º-amines, alternative procedures are preferred in many cases.
- The resulting 3º-alkyl-substituted urea is then hydrolyzed to give the amine.
- One important method of preparing 1º-amines, especially aryl amines, uses a reverse strategy.
- This nitration reaction gives a nitro group that can be reduced to a 1º-amine by any of several reduction procedures.
- The Hofmann rearrangement of 1º-amides provides an additional synthesis of 1º-amines.
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Important Reagent Bases
- Most base reagents are alkoxide salts, amines or amide salts.
- Since alcohols are much stronger acids than amines, their conjugate bases are weaker than amide bases, and fill the gap in base strength between amines and amide salts.
- Barton's base is a strong, poorly-nucleophilic, neutral base that serves in cases where electrophilic substitution of DBU or other amine bases is a problem.
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Oxidation States of Nitrogen
- Amine oxides are prepared by oxidizing 3º-amines or pyridines with hydrogen peroxide or peracids (e.g.
- Amine oxides are relatively weak bases, pKa ca. 4.5, compared with the parent amine.
- The nitrogen-containing product is a hydroxyl amine.
- For such a mechanism, the beta-hydrogen and amine oxide moieties necessarily have a syn-relationship.
- Cope elimination of diastereomeric amine oxides, such as those shown in examples #2 & 3 above, provide proof of the syn-relationship of the beta-hydrogen and amine oxide groups.