What does SNI stand for? 

SNi

SNi or Substitution Nucleophilic internal stands for a specific but not often encountered nucleophilic aliphatic substitution reaction mechanism. The name was introduced by Cowdrey et al. in 1937 to label nucleophilic reactions which occur with retention of configuration, but later was employed to describe various reactions that proceed with similar mechanism. A typical representative organic reaction displaying this mechanism is the chlorination of alcohols with thionyl chloride, or the decomposition of alkyl chloroformates, the main feature is retention of stereochemical configuration. Some examples for this reaction were reported by Edward S. Lewis and Charles E. Boozer in 1952. Mechanistic and kinetic studies were reported few years later by various researchers. Thionyl chloride first reacts with the alcohol to form an alkyl chloro sulfite, actually forming an intimate ion pair. The second step is the concerted loss of a sulfur dioxide molecule and its replacement by the chloride, which was attached to the sulphite group.

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