A nitronate (

IUPAC The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

: azinate) in

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J.; ...

is a

functional group In organic chemistry, a functional group is a substituent or moiety in a molecule that causes the molecule's characteristic chemical reactions. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reactions regardless of the rest ...

with the general structure . It is the anion of nitronic acid (sometimes also called an aci, or an azinic acid), a

tautomer Tautomers () are structural isomers (constitutional isomers) of chemical compounds that readily interconvert. The chemical reaction interconverting the two is called tautomerization. This conversion commonly results from the relocation of a hydr ...

ic form of a

nitro Nitro may refer to: Chemistry *Nitrogen, a chemical element and a gas except at very low temperatures, with which many compounds are formed: **Nitro compound, an organic compound containing one or more nitro functional groups, -NO2 **Nitroalkene, ...

compound. Just as ketones and aldehydes can exist in equilibrium with their enol tautomer, nitro compounds exist in equilibrium with their nitronate tautomer under basic conditions. In practice they are formed by the deprotonation of the α-carbon, the pka of which is typically around 17. : Nitroethane deprotonation

Nitronates are formed as intermediates in the

Henry reaction The Henry reaction is a classic carbon–carbon bond formation reaction in organic chemistry. Discovered in 1895 by the Belgian chemist Louis Henry (1834–1913), it is the combination of a nitroalkane and an aldehyde or ketone in the presence o ...

and

Nef reaction In organic chemistry, the Nef reaction is an organic reaction describing the acid hydrolysis of a salt of a primary or secondary nitroalkane () to an aldehyde () or a ketone () and nitrous oxide (). The reaction has been the subject of several ...

, the latter of which also demonstrates the instability of the nitronic acid form. The nitronate has two different resonance structures, one with a negative charge on the α-carbon and a double bond between the nitrogen and one of the oxygens, and another resonance structure with a double bond between the nitrogen and the α carbon, and no double bond between the nitrogen and the oxygens.

References

Functional groups Organonitrogen compounds Anions {{organic-chem-stub