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, ...

, tolyl groups are

functional groups 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 ...

related to

toluene Toluene (), also known as toluol (), is a substituted aromatic hydrocarbon. It is a colorless, water-insoluble liquid with the smell associated with paint thinners. It is a mono-substituted benzene derivative, consisting of a methyl group (CH3) a ...

. They have the general formula , the change of the relative position of the methyl and the R substituent on the

aromatic ring In chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property of cyclic ( ring-shaped), ''typically'' planar (flat) molecular structures with pi bonds in resonance (those containing delocalized electrons) that gives increased stability compared to satur ...

can generate three possible structural isomers 1,2 (''ortho''), 1,3 (''meta''), and 1,4 (''para''). Tolyl groups are

aryl group In organic chemistry, an aryl is any functional group or substituent derived from an aromatic ring, usually an aromatic hydrocarbon, such as phenyl and naphthyl. "Aryl" is used for the sake of abbreviation or generalization, and "Ar" is used as ...

s which are commonly found in the structure of diverse

chemical compound A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...

s. They are considered

nonpolar In chemistry, polarity is a separation of electric charge leading to a molecule or its chemical groups having an electric dipole moment, with a negatively charged end and a positively charged end. Polar molecules must contain one or more polar ...

and

hydrophobic In chemistry, hydrophobicity is the physical property of a molecule that is seemingly repelled from a mass of water (known as a hydrophobe). In contrast, hydrophiles are attracted to water. Hydrophobic molecules tend to be nonpolar and, th ...

groups. The functionalization to include tolyl groups into compounds is often done by Williamson etherification, using tolyl

alcohols In chemistry, an alcohol is a type of organic compound that carries at least one hydroxyl () functional group bound to a saturated carbon atom. The term ''alcohol'' originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol (ethyl alcohol), which is ...

as reagents, or by C-C coupling reactions. Tolyl

sulfonate In organosulfur chemistry, a sulfonate is a salt or ester of a sulfonic acid. It contains the functional group , where R is an organic group. Sulfonates are the conjugate bases of sulfonic acids. Sulfonates are generally stable in water, non-ox ...

s are excellent

leaving group In chemistry, a leaving group is defined by the IUPAC as an atom or group of atoms that detaches from the main or residual part of a substrate during a reaction or elementary step of a reaction. However, in common usage, the term is often limited t ...

s in

nucleophilic substitution In chemistry, a nucleophilic substitution is a class of chemical reactions in which an electron-rich chemical species (known as a nucleophile) replaces a functional group within another electron-deficient molecule (known as the electrophile). The ...

s, for this reason, they are commonly generated as intermediaries to activate alcohols. To this end, 4-toluenesulfonyl chloride is reacted in the presence of a base with the corresponding alcohol.

References

{{organic-chemistry-stub Aryl groups