Lessons from Chemical Politics: Friedel-Craft reactions

Hello steemians, it’s good to be back here again. This is a very memorable week in the history of my state of residence; Osun state in Nigeria as the people would be casting their votes to decide who would be the next Governor (or Mayor, in other countries) of the state. The last few months in Nigeria have been a display of political games and incessant news of party members ‘defecting’ and or ‘decamping’.

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As I was ruminating on the issue of political games being played out in Nigeria and the way and manner politicians defect from one party to the other, or decamp to form new parties, Friedel-Crafts mechanism crossed my mind. I couldn’t place the connection at first, but as I try to develop an analogy round it, the similarities became obvious to me and I want to share it with fellow steemians as well as my students.

Friedel-Craft reactions

They are organic reactions developed by Charles Friedel and James Craft. The reactions involve the use of AlCl₃. or AlBr₃ as catalyst in the electrophilic substitution reactions of benzene. These reactions include alkylation and acylation of benzene. Friedel-Craft reaction is used to join alkyl (e.g CH₃, C<sub.2H₅ etc), acyl (CH₃CO-) and even alkene groups to benzene by breaking the C-Cl bonds in the molecules.

Friede-Craft catalyst

This catalyst operates by instigating a heterolytic fission (bond fission which involves migration of the pair of bond electrons to one of the atoms bonded usually the more electronegative or the one with induced external influence). It usually occurs in covalent bonds of halogen molecules: Cl-Cl, Br-Br or C-halogen bonds: e.g. in CH₃Cl, CH₃COCl e.t.c. Friedel-Craft catalyst has affiliation for bonded halogen atom in covalent molecules.

Defection of an halogen to Friedel-Craft catalyst

The Friedel-Craft catalyst therefore causes the Cl-Cl or C-Cl bonds to break in such a way that the bond electrons move to the halogen. Aluminium Chloride AlCl₃ is used as the catalyst to polarize the halogen molecules to produce positively charged carbon or halogen as the case may be. The halogen then leaves its original molecule carrying the bonded electrons with it to the Friedel-Craft catalyst, thereby leaving the residue specie electron deficient.

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Defection in politics

This is the same with our Nigerian political parties. Politicians leave their original parties carrying the wealth and fame gained while they were in their original party to another party, leaving the original party deficient of funds and prospective candidates (they defect to another party). The original party then goes out to find means of filling the power and fund void created by the defected members. To do this, the party looks for rich citizens with power and fame to join them so as to fill the void created by the defected members. These new members join with the bait of being presented as prospective candidates for political posts.
This also happens in Friedel-Craft mechanism in which the residue electrophile attacks the benzene ring nucleus due to its electron richness (the site of delocalized pi electron

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Decamping

The Hydrogen atom co-attached with the incoming group then detaches itself from the benzene. In Nigerian politics, this is displayed by the aggrieved members of the original party who refused to be relegated to the background because of the newly joined members. They therefore decamp from the party to form another party with other aggrieved members of other parties with similar grievances.

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This is the emerging trend of politics in Nigeria today. The principle of defecting to another party or decamping to form new parties. Should we call it chemical politics or political chemistry?

Lessons from Friedel-Craft mechanism

The Friedel-Craft mechanism employs the principle of defection and decamping to form new products which are more useful in function and applications than the starting materials. Benzene is unreactive and on its own not very useful. It is also highly toxic. However, the products of Friedel-Craft reactions are used for varieties of applications. For instance methyl benzene is useful in the manufacture of explosives, dye-suffs, insecticides, glues as intermediate. It is less toxic than benzene and is added to fuel to increase the octane rating. The defecting and decamping processes in Friedel-Craft mechanism are important and useful for converting benzene to safer and more useful products.

Implication for Society

In the society, we now have politicians with no ideology but only selfish ambitions and when those ambitions get thwarted, they move on to another party with the hope of using their wealth and fame to create a niche for themselves. If our political parties are truly based on ideologies, everyone would stay to fight it out for the ideology of the party to be actualized if they truly believe in those ideologies in the first place. Can you imagine a republican becoming a democrat and vice versa? They are based on ideologies which they pass on from generation to generation. However, if we feel that the ideologies are obsolete and the new generation doesn’t believe in it, then new parties could be formed based on that, with the aim of being more beneficial to the masses and society at large.

Let’s borrow a leaf from Friedel-Craft mechanism

The molecules or atoms which defect or decamp in Friedel-Craft reactions formed new bonds which would yield more beneficial products compared to the original ones. However, in Nigerian politics, there isn’t any well-defined grounds on which the defection or decamping took place. Was it for the benefit of the individual party members or the party itself? Were there changes in party ideology which would yield better, safer and more beneficial effects on the nation? These are questions and lessons political parties should ask their defecting or decamping members.
Hope this has provoked some patriotic thoughts as well as drawn Friedel-Craft reactions from the pit of abstract to compressible chemical principles.