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Friedel-crafts Reactions

Mediumchemistry

Benzene reacts with acetyl chloride in the presence of anhydrous aluminium chloride, and the major aromatic product formed in this Friedel-Crafts process must be named.

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About This Question

Subject
chemistry
Chapter
hydrocarbons
Topic
friedel-crafts reactions
Difficulty
Medium
Year
2025
Tags
Friedel-Crafts acylationacylium ionLewis acid catalystaryl ketoneelectrophilic substitution

Solution

Correct Answer:

Friedel-Crafts acylation introduces an acyl group onto an aromatic ring using an acid chloride or anhydride together with a Lewis acid catalyst such as anhydrous . The catalyst polarizes acetyl chloride to generate the acylium ion , which acts as the electrophile and attacks benzene. After loss of a proton to restore aromaticity, the product is acetophenone, , an aryl ketone. Toluene is wrong because it would form from Friedel-Crafts alkylation with a methyl halide, not from an acyl chloride. Benzaldehyde is incorrect because formylation requires special reagents such as carbon monoxide and HCl (the Gattermann-Koch reaction), not acetyl chloride. Ethylbenzene would require alkylation with an ethyl group and does not arise from acylation, so it does not apply. A useful advantage of acylation is that, unlike alkylation, it does not suffer from carbocation rearrangement or polysubstitution because the acyl product deactivates the ring. The acylium ion is also resonance-stabilised, with the positive charge shared between carbon and oxygen, which makes it a well-defined electrophile that does not rearrange to a different skeleton. This is the NCERT account of Friedel-Crafts acylation and explains why ketones rather than rearranged alkyl products are obtained cleanly. A consistency check: the carbonyl-containing ketone is the logical product of adding an acyl, not an alkyl, group.

This medium difficulty chemistry question is from the chapter hydrocarbons, covering the topic of friedel-crafts reactions. It appeared in the 2025 exam.

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