Introduction Electrophilic aromatic substitution (EAS) is an organic reaction in which an electrophilic reagent replaces a hydrogen attached to an aromatic ring. One of the most important type of EAS is halogenation, in this experiment, bromination of an aromatic compound. The main goal of this experiment is to investigate the activators in the aromatic system and how the substituent affect the activator’s efficacy through the products that have been obtained in the EAS reaction. The EAS reaction is a fairly simple procedure in which nucleophilic aromatic system, electrophilic compound, which is the pyridinium tribromide, and a catalyst are required. The procedure is usually done with the electrophilic compound being added to the aromatic compound with a catalytic compound mixed in. After the reaction procedure, the products are then isolated and purified via filtration and recrystallization …show more content…
The general mechanism for EAS occurs in two step series. The first step, which is the rate-determining step, the benzene ring forms a sigma-bond to the aromatic ring, forming an intermediate structure. Thenafter, the proton is removed, forming the substituted aromatic ring. The product of the reaction is affected by the nucleophilic compound’s substituent and the site where the electrophilic substitution will occur. The substituent on the nucleophile affects its reactivity towards the electrophilic. For example, aniline allows the benzene ring to react more to the electrophilic attack than nitrobenzene, which is a deactivating substituent. Another factor that affects the reactivity of the reaction are the sites where the electrophilic attack will occur. It is likely that more substitution will occur in the ortho-para site than in the meta site. Mechanism