Marissa De la Paz
Chemistry 6BL
Evan Landstrom
T/R, 8am

Exp. 15B: Multistep synthesis of Nylong-6,6 from Cyclohexene The purpose of this lab experiment is to synthesize the polymer, Nylon-6,6, from the readily available starting material, cyclohexene. This reaction is done in three steps. The first is an oxidation step, which will produce adipic acid, the second consists of forming adipoyl chloride, and the last step is when the polymer is formed. Step one of the experiment consisted of oxidizing cyclohexene to adipic acid using sodium tungstate dehydrate as a catalyst as well as aliquat 336. Aliquat 336 is used as a phase transfer catalyst that increases the rate of a reaction between chemicals that are in different phases. In this case, the two phases are aqueous and organic and aliquat 336 is soluble in both. By using sodium tungstate, this eliminates the necessity of using a strong base such as permanganate, which was in the 1st edition’s procedure for this lab. Hydrogen peroxide is used to re-oxidize the intermediate of sodium tungstate after it has been used up. Therefore, only catalytic amounts of sodium tungstate are needed since it is recycled throughout the reaction. Also, by using sodium tungstate, the only byproduct that may be generated is water. …show more content…
DMF and oxalyl chloride undergo a reaction that forms Vilsmeier reagent, which is a chlorinating reagent. Vilsmeier regent is then able to initiate the formation of an acid chloride. This chloride ion is then able to attack the carbonyl carbon from the original adipic acid and the leaving group is kicked off. A drying tube is necessary to ensure that the reaction is under anhydrous conditions. This is essential since the adipoyl chloride can react with water and form HCl. The Vilsmeier intermediate that was formed