Organic Chemistry AS Question!!

Why is water used as the nucleophile instead of hydroxide ions when halogenoalkanes react with aqueous silver nitrate in ethanol? I've searched for this everywhere and couldn't find an explanation

Reply 1

ChiefKwen

Original post by kaykaayy

Why is water used as the nucleophile instead of hydroxide ions when halogenoalkanes react with aqueous silver nitrate in ethanol? I've searched for this everywhere and couldn't find an explanation

Does this help ?

http://www.knockhardy.org.uk/sci_htm_files/15halo.pdf

- Water is a poor nucleophile, faster reactions in an alcohol/water solution, miscible meaning more collisions.

Reply 2

Hogthoughts

Original post by ChiefKwen

Does this help ?

http://www.knockhardy.org.uk/sci_htm_files/15halo.pdf

- Water is a poor nucleophile, faster reactions in an alcohol/water solution, miscible meaning more collisions.

I've seen this before but it still doesn't answer my question, because why then is water used? There must be some benefit of it in this particular reaction. As otherwise they'd happily use hydroxide ions, they're faster. Im not sure, its confusing.