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Periodic trend and Order in Nucleophilicity for the p-Block elements

Learning Objective: To learn about the trend and order of nucleophilicity for the p-block elements in the periodic table

Prerequisites: 

Chapter: Fundamentals of Organic Reactions

Sub-topic: Nucleophiles

Author's Note: The p-block elements are routinely used as nucleophiles in molecular and functional group transformation reactions. Therefore, understanding of their order of strength according to their placement in the periodic table is imperative. This helps us choose an appropriate nucleophile for a reaction or help predict the behavior of the one already part of a reaction. Even if the nucleophile is limited to one neutral molecule, say H2O, its reactivity varies by many thousand folds just by changing to its charged anionic version OH-. Understanding this difference is crucial to organic chemistry reactions.

Periodic trend and Order in Nucleophilicity

The nucleophilicity increases on going down from top to bottom elements in a group.  

nucleophilicity trend periodic table

Amongst the halogens, the highly electronegative atoms of Halogen (HF, HCl) at the top of the periodic table are not good nucleophiles. But the nucleophilicity of the Halogen increases when....

The strength comparison of charged versus neutral nucleophile was proved experimentally ....

In a period, nucleophilicity decreases from...

Several times, nucleophilicity is compared with basicity. Both are similar in the context of electron donation; however, they differ in...

Subscribe to read about how to choose and predict a nucleophile's strength based on its position in the periodic table.

Fundamentals of Organic Reactions
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