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by | Dec 1, 2017

Pentanenitrile, valeronitrile or butyl cyanide is a nitrile with the formula C4H9CN. This can be written BuCN, with Bu representing an n-butyl (linear butyl group).

Production

Pentanenitrile can be produced by heating 1-chlorobutane with sodium cyanide in dimethyl sulfoxide. This reaction takes about 20 minutes, keeping the temperature below 160 °C. The yield is about 93%.[2]

Another way to get the substance is by heating valeraldehyde with hydroxylamine.[3]

Pentanenitrile is contained in bone oil.[4]

Properties

The pentanenitrile molecule is flexible and can adopt a number of different conformers, so that it will naturally be a mixture. These conformers are called anti-anti (30%), anti-gauche (46%), gauche-anti, gauche-gauche-cis, and gauche-gauche-trans.[5]

Biology

Pentanenitrile is toxic to animals, and produces its action by the liberation of cyanide by cytochrome P450. The cyanide is detoxified and excreted in urine as thiocyanate.[1]

Pentanenitrile is found in Brassica species and varieties such as broccoli.

Pentanenitrile is hydrolyzed to valeric acid by the fungi Gibberella intermedia,[6] Fusarium oxysporum, and Aspergillus niger in which it induces production of the nitrilase enzyme.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Buhler, D. R.; Reed, D. J. (2013). Nitrogen and Phosphorus Solvents. Elsevier. pp. 359–362. ISBN 9781483290201.
  2. ^ Smiley, Robert; Arnold, Charles (February 1960). "Notes- Aliphatic Nitriles from Alkyl Chlorides". The Journal of Organic Chemistry. 25 (2): 257–258. doi:10.1021/jo01072a600.
  3. ^ Khezri, S. Hadi; Azimi, Nahal; Mohammed-Vali, Mehrdad; Eftekhari-Sis, Bagher; Hashemi, Mohammed M.; Baniasadi, Mohammed H.; Teimouri, Fatemeh (5 October 2007). "Red mud catalyzed one-pot synthesis of nitriles from aldehydes and hydroxylamine hydrochloride under microwave irradiation". Arkivoc. 2007 (15): 162–170. doi:10.3998/ark.5550190.0008.f16. hdl:2027/spo.5550190.0008.f16.
  4. ^ Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. the Office. 1979.
  5. ^ Crowder, G.A. (October 1989). "Conformational analysis of n-butyl cyanide". Journal of Molecular Structure: THEOCHEM. 200: 235–244. doi:10.1016/0166-1280(89)85056-0.
  6. ^ Gong, Jin-Song; Li, Heng; Zhu, Xiao-Yan; Lu, Zhen-Ming; Wu, Yan; Shi, Jing-Song; Xu, Zheng-Hong; Yun, Sung-Hwan (30 November 2012). "Fungal His-Tagged Nitrilase from Gibberella intermedia: Gene Cloning, Heterologous Expression and Biochemical Properties". PLOS ONE. 7 (11): e50622. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...750622G. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050622. PMC 3511519. PMID 23226336.Open access icon
  7. ^ Kaplan, Ondřej; Vejvoda, Vojtěch; Charvátová-Pišvejcová, Andrea; Martínková, Ludmila (15 August 2006). "Hyperinduction of nitrilases in filamentous fungi". Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology. 33 (11): 891–896. doi:10.1007/s10295-006-0161-9. PMID 16909267. S2CID 3256514.