Amit Anand
Last Activity: 13 Years ago
The Reimer Tiemann reaction wil not proceed as normal if we use tetrachloromethane; the usual mechanism involves deprotonation of chloroform followed by loss of a chloride ion from the anion to yield dichlorocarbene. With no hydrogens to be removed, tetrachloromethane will not do this.
It is, however, conceivable that dichlorocarbene could be generated from CCl4 by reaction with zinc, leading to a pseudo-Reimer-Tiemman reaction.
hope this may help