The general procedure for the synthesis of 2-(2-bromophenyl)-2-methylpropionitrile from o-bromofluorobenzene and isobutyronitrile was as follows: in a Mettler Toledo MiniBlock reaction tube, 0.01 mol of 1-bromo-2-fluorobenzene and a solution of 2-methylpropionitrile prepared from 14 g of formononitrile in 8.5 mL of THF with 160 mL of THF were added separately. Subsequently, an equimolar amount (0.01 mol) of sodium hexamethyldisilanilide (1 M solution in THF) was added as a base to each reaction tube at ambient temperature. The reaction mixture was heated to 65 °C over 1 h, then cooled to ambient temperature and the reaction was quenched with 6 mL of 5% HCl solution. The organic phase was separated and the solvent was removed by evaporation. The crude product was analyzed by gas chromatography (GC)/mass spectrometry (MS) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) to give 2-(2-bromophenyl)-2-methylpropanenitrile (5.2% GC/MS yield) and unreacted haloaromatics (76.8%).
