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How will you convert methyl bromide to dimethylamine?

Answer 1

Well, you can do this in one step; a methyl bromide is not very sterically hindered at all, so a single #"S"_N2# reaction with methylamine is sufficient.

For a solvent you can use an aprotic solvent like DMSO (dimethylsulfoxide), or perhaps acetone, which does not "distract" the methylamine by inviting it to come get a proton. (That would have deactivated it and then we wouldn't have a nucleophile.)

By the time the reaction has finished, either the methylamine nucleophile or another molecule of the dimethylamine product would have equilibrated to acquire the proton from the protonated product, since the pKa of methylamine is about #10.66#, while the pKa of dimethyl amine is about #10.73#.

The equilibrium lies on the side of the weaker acid.

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Answer 2

Nolan Allen

Methyl bromide can be converted to dimethylamine through nucleophilic substitution by reacting it with sodium amide (NaNH2) in liquid ammonia.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.