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elimination reaction

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elimination reaction

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type of organic reaction in which two substituents are removed from a molecule in either a one or two-step mechanism

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Encyclopedic overview

Elimination reaction of cyclohexanol to cyclohexene with sulfuric acid and heat An elimination reaction is a type of organic reaction in which two substituents are removed from a molecule in either a one- or two-step mechanism. The one-step mechanism is known as the E2 reaction, and the two-step mechanism is known as the E1 reaction. The numbers refer not to the number of steps in the mechanism, but rather to the kinetics of the reaction: E2 is bimolecular (second-order) while E1 is unimolecular (first-order). In cases where the molecule is able to stabilize an anion but possesses a poor leaving group, a third type of reaction, E1CB, exists. Finally, the pyrolysis of xanthate and acetate esters proceed through an "internal" elimination mechanism, the Ei mechanism.

E2 mechanism

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “elimination reaction” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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