THERMALLY INDUCED REARRANGEMENTS IN THE SOLID STATE

Menahem Kaftory

Department of Chemistry, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel

The beginning of solid state organic chemistry can be traced back to 1848 when Friedrich Wähler discovered the solid state conversion of ammonium cyanate to urea. The field of solid state organic chemistry has been grown dramatically since the advent of X-ray crystallography, which enable the correlation between the molecular arrangement in the crystal with the molecular reactivity. Topochemistry became an established discipline in organic chemistry as a result of the pioneering work of Gerhardt Schmidt and his co-workers at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. The systematic work of this group in the early 1960s confirmed the topochemical postulate which states that reaction in crystals proceed with a minimum of atomic and molecular movement.

A short survey of thermally induced solid state reactions will be presented. Emphasis will be given to examples showing migration of large groups such as methyl and aryl in the solid state. Elaborate study case of ON and OS methyl transfer in the solid state will be discussed.