Don’t you wish there were a method to convert alcohols into alkyl halides without all these complications? Ah, looks like we’ve got just the reagents for you!
Concept #1: Learning the mechanism of SOCl2.
These reagents proceed through SN2 mechanisms, so they will only work on 1° and 2° alcohols. That said, we expect inversion of configuration from this conversion.
Example #1: Predict the mechanism of PBr3, and draw the final product.
A few notes regarding the above video: