Question

Tertiary alkyl halides show higher reactivity towards bimolecular nucleophilic substitution than secondary alkyl halides.

(a) True

(b) False

The question was posed to me during a job interview.

The origin of the question is Haloalkanes & Haloarenes topic in division Haloalkanes and Haloarenes of Chemistry – Class 12

Answer 1

Right answer is (b) False

To explain: Tertiary alkyl halides have more alkyl groups present around the carbon linked to the halogen, which causes steric hinderance of the nucleophile and hence the reactivity towards SN2 reactions reduces significantly.