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+ Amines
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Lai Johnny

Why does sulfonation of aniline occur para rather than ortho?

Bob Spencer  Follow

The sulfonyl group is kind of bulky due to the size of the sulfur, so steric hindrance is probably making it energetically disfavored for the group to be placed ortho. It's unlikely you can see this easily from a model or a drawing. If you have access to computational resources, you might be able to see the issue.

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