Archive for June 14th, 2025

Mechanism of the dimerisation of Nitrosobenzene.

Saturday, June 14th, 2025

I am in the process of revising my annual lecture to first year university students on the topic of “curly arrows”. I like to start my story in 1924, when Robert Robinson published the very first example[cite]gg9g[/cite] as an illustration of why nitrosobenzene undergoes electrophilic bromination in the para position of the benzene ring. I follow this up by showing how “data mining” can be used to see if this supports his assertion. I have used the very latest version of the CSD crystal structure database to update the version originally posted here in 2020.[cite]10.59350/c6thp-wqe69[/cite]

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