rlabomba yep, that is exactly what I had in mind! I'm fairly sure that was the test answer expected. Although, once again, Don't capitalize the "R" in "Br". It implies you are using a weird boronic ester, not diatomic bromine. Just to be specific, I would say the first Br
2 is in the presence of light, the second one isnt, or uses NBS as a bromine source.
Organicdan,
I had this discussion with a professor a long time ago, the reaction simply doesn't work in real life. OH
-'s basic properties simply overcome its nucleophilicity, even under cold temps. I challenge you to find a scholarly source where OH
- will displace an alkyl halide directly, even a primary one. I used scifinder for this cyclohexane substitution and was unable to find an example. This is a case where paper chemistry should bow to what we observe in the real world.
I did find a couple examples where a primary alkyl halide in mixed aqueous/organic solutions could be cooked to give an alcohol (like this
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00156a045), but that is water, not NaOH. Another exception is that some alkyl iodides will slowly hydrolyze in neutral water.