Question

how will you convert ethyl chloride into ethane and n-butane?

Answer 1

a) Ethyl chloride reacts with alcoholic KOH to yield ethene that reacts with hydrogen in the presence of Nickel to give ethane.

i) $$\begin{gathered} {\text{CH}}_{\text{3}}{\text{CH}}_{\text{2}}\text{Cl}\underset{-HCl}{\overset{alcKOH}{\to }}{\text{H}}_2{\text{C=CH}}_2 \\ \text{ethyl chloride ethene} \end{gathered}$$


ii) $$\begin{gathered} {\text{H}}_{2}C=C{H}_2+H_2\stackrel{Ni}{\to }{H}_{3}C-C{H}_3 \\ etheneethane \end{gathered}$$



b) Ethyl chloride can be converted to n-butane by Wurtz reaction where two molecules of ethyl chloride react with two atoms of sodium in the presence of anhydrous ether to yield a molecule of n-butane.

$$\begin{gathered} {\text{2CH}}_{3}C{H}_{2}Cl+2Na\stackrel{anydrousether}{\to }C{H}_{3}C{H}_{2}C{H}_{2}C{H}_3+2NaCl \\ ethylchloriden-butane \end{gathered}$$