CYCLOHEPTANE

Chemical properties

Clear colourless liquid

Physical properties

Clear, oily, flammable liquid with a faint odor resembling cyclohexane, cyclooctane, or gasoline.

The Uses of CYCLOHEPTANE

Cycloheptane is used as a nonpolar solvent for the chemical industry and as an intermediate in the manufacture of chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs. It can be used to get fluorocycloheptane.

Synthesis Reference(s)

Journal of the American Chemical Society, 95, p. 1669, 1973 DOI: 10.1021/ja00786a057
Tetrahedron Letters, 17, p. 463, 1976 DOI: 10.1016/S0040-4039(00)77883-X
The Journal of Organic Chemistry, 40, p. 3652, 1975 DOI: 10.1021/jo00913a008

General Description

A colorless oily liquid. Insoluble in water and less dense than water. Flash point 60°F. Vapors heavier than air. Inhalation of high concentrations may have a narcotic effect. Used to make other chemicals.

Air & Water Reactions

Highly flammable. Insoluble in water.

Reactivity Profile

Saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons, such as CYCLOHEPTANE, may be incompatible with strong oxidizing agents like nitric acid. Charring of the hydrocarbon may occur followed by ignition of unreacted hydrocarbon and other nearby combustibles. In other settings, aliphatic saturated hydrocarbons are mostly unreactive. They are not affected by aqueous solutions of acids, alkalis, most oxidizing agents, and most reducing agents.

Health Hazard

May be harmful by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. May cause eye and skin irritation.

Fire Hazard

Special Hazards of Combustion Products: Vapor may travel considerable distance to a source of ignition and flash back. Container explosion may occur under fire conditions. Forms explosive mixures in air.

Environmental Fate

Biological. Cycloheptane may be oxidized by microbes to cycloheptanol, which may oxidize to give cycloheptanone (Dugan, 1972).
Photolytic. The following rate constants were reported for the reaction of cycloheptane and OH radicals in the atmosphere: 1.31 x 10^-12 cm³/molecule?sec at 298 K (Atkinson, 1985) and 1.25 x 10^-11 cm³/molecule?sec (Atkinson, 1990).
Chemical/Physical. Cycloheptane will not hydrolyze because it has no hydrolyzable functional group.

Purification Methods

Distil it from sodium using a Vigreux column (p 11), under nitrogen. It is highly flammable. [Bocian & Strauss J Am Chem Soc 99 2866 1977, Ruzicka et al. Helv Chim Acta 28 395 1945, Beilstein 5 H 92, 5 IV 92.]