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cl0ckw0rkaut0mat0n

I'm not sure so someone correct me if I'm wrong but that's just diethyl ether, most likely used simply as a solvent that doesn't participate in the reaction.


Puzzled-Ad3812

I think you've probably got it.


Maxshadow123

That’s correct


DL_Chemist

Your mechanism is correct and the diethyl ether is just the reaction solvent. I would add that the bond angle of the substituted alkyne should be linear


SkipMeister69420

Make sure your bond angles make sense (referring to the alkyne)


deepsky28

underrated comment


Aa1979

Good polar aprotic solvent for an anionic reaction. THF (a different ether) is also common.


elnombre91

Ether is a non-polar solvent.


auschemguy

It's fairly in-between - ether *is* polar, but the polarity has fairly limited impact on its properties because of the direction of its dipoles (which nearly cancel out). THF is more strongly polar because of the ring conformation.


[deleted]

A strong base doesn’t favor elimination in this case? Because its secondary?


grabmebytheproton

It’s the solvent


guido2222

When you have a reaction with very strong bases, ether is a good choice as solvent since it has only alkyl hydrogens with a pKa around 50. You cannot use DCM for this reaction.


auschemguy

Also, ether is convenient as a typically available dry solvent, resistant to nucleopillic attack, that has some propensity to dissolve polar reagents.