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Spring Dales Public School

CHEMISTRY PROJECT

FILE SESSION: 2025-26

PROJECT- STUDY OF AMINES

REPORTED BY – Your’s Name

CLASS- 12th – SCIENCE

REPORTED TO – Mr. Gaurav Saroha (PGT CHEMISTRY)

SIGN. OF EXTERNAL EXAMINER SIGN. OF PRINCIPAL

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Certificate

This is to certify that YOUR’S NAME of class XII

SCIENCE has satisfactorily completed his chemistry investigatory

project as prescribed by the course during the academic year

2025-2026.

INTERNAL EXAMINER SIGN.

EXTERNAL EXAMINER SIGN. PRINCIPAL

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Acknowledgement
I would like to sincerely and profusely thank my chemistry
teacher Mr. Gaurav Saroha (PGT Chemistry) and our lab
attendant for their able guidance and support in completing my
project.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to the Principal Mrs.

Taruna Chaudhary Mam, for providing me with all the
facility that was required.

Signature of Candidate

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INDEX

1. Certificate
2. Acknowledgement
3. Introduction
4. Classification
5. Nomenclature
6. Structures
7. Preparation of Amines
8. Conclusion
9. Result
10. Bibliography

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OBJECTIVE

The Objective of this project is to study as

derivatives of ammonia obtained by replacement
of one, two or all the three hydrogen atoms by
alkyl and aryl groups.

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INTRODUCTION
Amines are basic nitrogen containing organic compounds
thought to be derived from ammonia by the replacement of one or
more hydrogen atoms bonded to nitrogen by alkyl or aryl groups.

Amines are named by following two methods:

(a) In the common nomenclature system primary aliphatic

amines are named as alkylamines. In this system the name of the
amine is obtained by adding the suffix amine to the alkyl group
bonded to the nitrogen atom eg ethylamine.

(b) In the systematic nomenclature (IUPAC) they are names as

alkanamines, with the alkyl group being named as alkane and the
word –e ending being replaced by amine.

CLASSIFICATION
Primary amines

Secondary and tertiary amines are however named as N-Substituted

derivatives of primary amines. The largest alkyl group is taken to
be the parent molecule whereas the smaller alkyl group is taken to
be a substituent.
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The prefix N-is added as a locant to identify that the substituent is

bonded to the nitrogen atom and not to the carbon atom. If there are
two, three or four identical groups then the prefix di, tri or tetra
may be used.

Secondary amines

Tertiary amines

NOMENCLATURE
IUPAC nomenclature retains the common name aniline for the
amino substituted derivative of benzene. Substituted derivatives of
aniline are numbered beginning from carbon that bears the amino
group.

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Many aromatic amines like toludines and anisides are still known
by their historical names.

Aromatic amines have also been named as arenamines. Thus

aniline the parent compound of the aromatic family is listed as
benzenamine.

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Substitutive nomenclature: The most widely used system of

substitutive amine nomenclature is the one adopted by Chemical
Abstracts- a comprehensive index of chemical literature. In this
system the compounds are named as follows:

STRUCTURES

Alkyl amines have structure quite similar to ammonia. The

geometry of the sp3 hybridized nitrogen atom bonded to three
atoms or groups is trigonal pyramidal (or approximately
tetrahedral) with nitrogen at the apex of the pyramid. Depending
upon the composition of the amine, the three sp3 hybridized orbitals
form sigma bond with the hydrogen atom or the carbon atom of the
alkyl group that are directed downwards to form the triangular base
of the pyramid. Since the lone pair of electrons on nitrogen is
considered the fourth group, which makes the arrangement of
“groups” around nitrogen to be approximately tetrahedral.

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Due to the presence of lone pair of electrons there is repulsion

between lone pair and bond pair, as a result the bond angle between
the two adjacent hydrogen atoms or alkyl groups in primary and
secondary amines decreases from tetrahedral angle of 109.5 to
107o. But in case of tertiary amine the C-N-C bond angle is 108 o.
The C-N bond distance in all types of aliphatic amines are 1.47Ao.

Arylamines also have a pyramidal arrangement of bonds around

nitrogen, but the pyramid as in the case of aniline is somewhat
shallower. As a consequence of the tetrahedral geometry of the
tertiary amines, in which all the alkyl groups bonded to the nitrogen
are different, as in the case of ethylmethyl amine. Then this
molecule is chiral and can exist in a pair of enantiomers.

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It has been observed that though these tertiary amines are chiral but
they optically inactive because the enantiomers cannot be resolved
as they undergo rapid interconversion by a process called
pyramidal inversion. During the process there is rapid oscillation of

nitrogen atom from one side of the plane to another. In the

transition state of this inversion process there is rehybridization of
the nitrogen to planar sp2 geometry with the lone pair of electrons
lying in the unhybridized 2p orbital. Nitrogen completes the
inversion process and becomes sp3 hybridized again.

PREPARATION OF AMINES

(i) Alkylation of ammonia: Alkyl amines, primary, secondary or

tertiary are prepared by heating alkyl halide with ethanolic solution
of ammonia in a sealed tube at 100 oC. If ammonia is used in
excess, primary amine is the major product.

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Primary amine produced during the reaction is itself a good

nucleophile and it competes with ammonia. It is for this reason that
a mixture of primary and secondary amines is produced.

If alkyl halide is used in excess, primary amine formed furthers

reacts with alkyl halide to form secondary, tertiary and finally
quaternary ammonium salt. This reaction is known as Hoffmann
ammonolysis of alkyl halides.

(ii) Reduction of nitriles: Another important method for the

preparation of primary alkyl amines involves reaction of nitrile
with hydrogen. In the presence of catalyst, usually raney nickel.
The reaction involves addition of two molecules of hydrogen
across the triple bond, leading to the generation of primary
amine.
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The reduction of nitriles can also be carried out with

sodium/alcohol (mandius reaction) or lithium aluminium
hydride.

(iii) Reduction of azide: Alkyl azide on reduction yields

alkylamines. This reduction reaction can easily be carried out by
a variety of reagent including lithium aluminium hydride. The
method involves converting alkyl halide to alkyl azide and then
reducing the azide to primary amine by treating it with sodium
and alcohol or lithium aluminium hydride.

(iv) Reductive amination: Reduction of imine derivative of

aldehyde or ketone to amines is commonly known as reductive
amination. The overall reaction involves the conversion of
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carbonyl compound to an imine, often referred to as Schiff base,

resulting in the formation of carbon-nitrogen bond, followed by
its reduction to amines. Reduction of imine is achieved by
lithium aluminium hydride, sodium borohydride, sodium
cyanoborohydride, sodium and alcohol or by catalytic
hydrogenation.

The synthetic utility of the reaction can be gauged from the fact
that the reaction can be carried out in a single step by
hydrogenating the solution containing both ammonia/amine and
carbonyl compound along with hydrogenation catalyst. The
intermediate imine formed during the reaction is not isolated but
it is reduced under the conditions of the reaction, because imines
are reduced much more rapidly than carbonyl compounds.

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All category of amines is synthesized by this process. When reaction is

carried out with ammonia, the product is primary amine, with primary
amine the product is secondary amine and with secondary amine the
product is tertiary amine.

CONCLUSION

Amines can be considered as derivatives of ammonia obtained

by replacement of hydrogen atoms with alkyl or aryl groups.
Replacement of one hydrogen atom of ammonia gives rise to
structure of the type R-NH2, known as primary amine.
Secondary amines are characterised by the structure R 2NH or R-
NHR’ and tertiary amines by R3N, RNR’R’’ or R2NR’.
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Secondary and tertiary amines are known as simple amines if

the alkyl or aryl groups are the same and mixed amines if the
groups are different. Like ammonia, all the three types of amines
have one unshared electron pair on nitrogen atom due to which
they behave as Lewis bases.

Amines are usually formed from nitro compounds,

halides, amides, imides, etc. They exhibit hydrogen bonding
which influence their physical properties. In alkylamines, a
combination of electron releasing, steric and H-bonding factors
influence the stability of the substituted ammonium cations in
protic polar solvents and thus affect the basic nature of amines.
Alkyl amines are found to be stronger bases than ammonia. In
aromatic amines, electron releasing and withdrawing groups,
respectively increase and decrease their basic character. Aniline
is a weaker base than ammonia.

Reactions of amines are governed by availability of the

unshared pair of electrons on nitrogen. Influence of the number
of hydrogen atoms at nitrogen atom on the type of reactions and
nature of products is responsible for identification and
distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary amines. p-
Toluenesulphonyl chloride is used for the identification of
primary, secondary and tertiary amines. Presence of amino
group in aromatic ring enhances reactivity of the aromatic
amines. Reactivity of aromatic amines can be controlled by
acylation process, i.e., by treating with acetyl chloride or acetic
anhydride.
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Tertiary amines like trimethylamine are used as insect

attractants. Aryldiazonium salts, usually obtained from
arylamines, undergo replacement of the diazonium group with a
variety of nucleophiles to provide advantageous methods for
producing aryl halides, cyanides, phenols and arenes by
reductive removal of the diazo group. Coupling reaction of
aryldiazonium salts with phenols or arylamines give rise to the
formation of azo dyes.

RESULTS
(i) There is no use of expensive anhydrous or aprotic solvents
(ii) The reaction can be carried out at lower temperatures
(iii) Greater region and chemo selectivity is achieved in these
reactions
(iv) The yield of the product formed in high and lesser
chances of side reactions

BIBLOGRAPHY
1. Website 2. Books:
 www.wikipedia.org  Comprehensive Practical Manual
 www.google.com
 NCERT Class XII
 www.yahoo.com

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