The Student Room Group

Formation of nitronium ion

Hi, I've got OCR "Chains, rings and spectroscopy" tommorow, and there's one thing I'm a bit unsure about.

For the mechanism of the nitration of benzene, you need to know an equation for the formation of the electrophile, NO2+.

Is it OK just to write: HNO3 + H+ --> NO2+ + H2O, or do you need to list the series of equations involving HNO3 and H2SO4?

P.S: Good luck to everybody taking the exam tommorow.
I'm doing AQA chem but we still have to do the nitration of benzene. They may ask you to do an overall equation; HNO3 + 2H2 SO4 = NO2 + + H3 O+ + 2HSO4 - or they may ask you to do a series of equations.
Reply 2
For AQA you can also have:

HNO3 + H2SO4 -> H2O + NO2++ + HSO4-