First we will look at the reaction of alkenes with STRONG acids.
For an acid to be an effective enough electrophile for an alkene, the acid
must be a strong one. The strong acids are the haloacids (HCl, HBr, HI)
and peroxyacids (H2SO4, HNO3, HClO4).
All of these acids have a pKa with a negative sign meaning that they effectively
are more than 100% ionized when dissolved in a solvent. Thus, a strong
acid, HA, can be viewed as H+ and A:-. The H+
is the elctrophile that makes the reaction work.
