Can you make to 2-Bromo pentane as the only product from one pentene starting material why or why not

Question

As well as can you make 1-brompentane?

Answer 1

There is no synthesis that produces only one product and zero side products that I know of. However, there are many reactions that can produce a singular major product in very high yields (~99%). For this reaction in particular, you would get 2-bromopentane as the major product by simply adding HBr and heating in a suitable solvent due to secondary carbocations being more stable than primary ones.

Creating 1-bromopentane is a bit harder, but one possible route is to use hydroboration and then substitution of the hydroxyl group using a bromine salt such as NaBr in a nonpolar solvent. You could try HBr, but it's a bit risky because if the reaction goes sN1 then you would get the secondary carbocation again by rearrangement.