Question

What is Corey-house reaction? In what way is it superior to Wurtz reaction?

Answer 1

Hint : Wurtz’s reaction is an organic chemical coupling reaction in which the sodium metal reacts with two alkyl halides in the presence of dry ether and form a higher alkane along with a compound containing the halogen and the sodium metal. This reaction is mainly used to prepare the long alkane chain or higher alkanes.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
The Corey-House reaction is nothing but just the coupling reaction which is a good synthetic way to join the two alkyl groups together and thus producing a higher alkanes. Like the Corey-House reaction, there are also two more similar reactions. One of them is Gilman reagent. This reagent reacts with alkyl halide to give an alkane with higher number of carbons as compared to initial state. The Corey-House reaction is very useful in organic synthesis but it has a limitation also and that is it is only applicable to ${1^\circ }$ alkyl halide but the Gilman reagent is applicable to all ${1^\circ },{2^\circ },{3^\circ }$ alkyl halides. In Corey-House synthesis alkyl halides react with lithium in presence of dry ether to form alkyl lithium. The reaction is given below.
$R - X + 2Li \to R - Li + LiX$
It is superior to the Wurtz reaction because from the Wurtz reaction we can prepare only the alkane having an even number of carbon atoms but from the Corey-House reaction we can prepare the alkanes having both an even and odd number of carbon atoms.

Note :
The Wurtz reaction has been given by the French chemist Charles Adolphe Wurtz. We can not only use sodium but also silver, indium, zinc, activated copper, and iron in Wurtz reaction to form alkanes. The formation of free radicals also takes place during the mechanism of the reaction.