A Simple Preparation of Anhydrous Tetra Alkylammonium Salts

Abstract

Tetraalkyl ammonium (TAA) salts are of great importance in many areas of chemistry (organic, physical etc.). Tetraalkylammonium (TAA) chlorides, bromides or iodides are usually prepared by direct quaternization of trial-kyl amines with the corresponding alkyl halides. However other tetraalkylammonium (TAA) salts - cyanides, rhoda-nides, azides etc. cannot be prepared in this direct way. A typical method of preparation of these salts consists in ion exchange between available TAA halides and various salts containing the required anions. In some instances simply treating the TAA halides with aqueous solution of silver salts can be applied. This procedure, however, besides being costly is limited to the cases when the required silver salts are soluble in water¹.