Talk:Phosphoryl chloride

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[edit] HCl and trialkyl phosphates

Regarding the recent comment in the article: From what I understand, free HCl can attack trialkyl phosphates to give RCl and the corresponding phosphorus acid, and so if you want to avoid this you need a proton scavanger. If you don't add that, you get a product just like you would with PCl₅ or SOCl₂. Le Chatelier isn't involved here, because the HCl is not taking it back to a P-Cl bond. I had thought the phrase "sensitive to attack" made it clear (I didn't talk about any equilibrium), but maybe it's not. When I write stuff like this, I try to be very concise and not labour the details - but do you think more explanation is needed?

Regarding the need for a Lewis acid, I haven't run the reaction myself so I don't know. However I lifted this information and the MgCl₂ example straight from the references I used. I suspect that you can do it either with a Lewis acid or with a base, but perhaps the MgCl₂ conditions are the more usual if they were listed in the books I used. I don't have all of those books to hand, but I know I had G&E and 2 or 3 phosphorus books all laid out in front of me when I wrote that section.

Thanks a lot for your comments and scrutiny. Funny to think we didn't even have this article at all four months ago! Cheers, Walkerma 04:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)