Abstract The high school organic chemistry textbook illustrates the substitution and elimination reactions of halogenated hydrocarbons using the reaction of bromoethane with sodium hydroxide as an example, qualitatively describing the reaction patterns (water and alcohol solutions respectively favor substitution and elimination reactions). This paper investigated the molecular mechanism of the reactions using computational chemistry methods, calculated the kinetics and thermodynamic properties of the reactions, and provided microstructural information and intuitive physical images of the reactions. The research findings contributed to deepening students' understanding of the reaction properties and patterns of halogenated hydrocarbons, while the research methods helped students recognize that computational chemistry was an important tool for studying chemical reaction mechanisms.
FENG Ai-Li, LIU Lei, ZHU Rong-Xiu, ZHANG Dong-Ju. Elucidating Competitive Mechanisms of Substitution and Elimination Reactions of Bromoethane Using Computational Chemistry[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, 2025, 46(3): 61-65.
