Oxymercuration reaction
|
|
The oxymercuration reaction is a chemical reaction used in organic chemistry to form a neutral alcohol without any rearrangement of carbocations. In this reaction, similar to some other organic reactions, the Hg2+ ion works to stabilize the molecule to prevent carbocation formation and so prevents rearrangement. The reaction results in a product that follows Markovnikov's rule.
The general equation for the reaction is as follows:
Strictly speaking, only the first step is oxymercuration, but in practice this is nearly always followed by demercuration with NaBH4 (the second step).Template:Reaction-stub