Chemical Education Today
Letters Questioning an Ultrasonic Lab Setup With regard to the article “Effective, Safe, and Inexpensive Microscale Ultrasonic Setup for Teaching and Research Labs” (1), it should be noted that the unique reaction presented in Figure 4 seems to be chosen to produce confusion to students. The opportunity to interpret the reaction on the basis of a Finkelstein reaction followed by an Ullmann-type process has been lost. But this interpretation might be questionable as it is the proposed intermediate. What is unquestionable is that the intermediate referred to as an oxyallyl cation is not a cation but a zwitterion, and, what is worst,
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the mentioned by-product, CuI2 (crucial to explain the need of excess copper referred to in the text, since in fact CuI is formed) is nonexistent. Literature Cited 1. Montaña, A. M.; Grima, P. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 754– 757. Francisco J. Arnáiz Laboratorio de Química Inorgánica, Universidad de Burgos 09001 Burgos, Spain
[email protected] Vol. 81 No. 2 February 2004
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Journal of Chemical Education
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