Acetal hydrolysis concerted

Fig. 8.1. Representation of transition states for the first stage of acetal hydrolysis, (a) Initial C—O bond breaking (b) concerted mechanism with C—O bond breaking leading O—H bond formation (c) concerted mechanism with proton transfer leading C—O bond breaking (d) initial proton transfer.

Fig. 8.2. Contour plot showing a favOTed concerted mechanism for the first step in acetal hydrolysis, in which proton transfer is more complete in the transition state than C—O bond breaking.

As one might expect the rate of p-nitrophenyl heptanoate hydrolysis increased at low ethanol concentrations as a result of apolar binding. The rate of p-nitrophenyl acetate hydrolysis also increased markedly at low ethanol concentration. This finding was explained by a conformational effect on the polymer, that is, lower ethanol concentration brings about a shrinkage of the polymer, which increases concerted interactions of the imidazole residues. The hydrolysis of 3-nitro-4-dodecanoyloxybenzoate was found to be 1700 times faster in the presence of poly[4(5)-vinylimidazole] compared to free imidazole (77). A double-displacement mechanism was demonstrated for this system (75). 

The second step in acetal hydrolysis is conversion of the hemiacetal to the carbonyl compound. The mechanism of this step is similar to that of the first step. Usually the second step is faster than the initial one. Hammett ct—p plots and solvent isotope effects both indicate that the TS has less cationic character than is the case for the first step. These features of the mechanism suggest that a concerted removal of the proton at the hydroxyl group occurs as the alcohol is eliminated. 

While the A1 mechanism shown above operates in most acetal hydrolyses, it has been shown that at least two other mechanisms can take place with suitable substrates. In one of these mechanisms the second and third of the above steps are concerted, so that the mechanism is Sn2cA (or A2). This has been shown, for example, in the hydrolysis of 1,1-diethoxyethane, by isotope effect studies ... 

Another important site of structural variation in cephalosporins is C(3) (Table 5.4.J). Electron-withdrawing substituents at C(3) such as a Cl-atom or a MeO group increase base-catalyzed hydrolysis of cephalosporins by both resonance and inductive effects [92], For cephalosporins carrying 3-methylene-linked substituents with leaving group ability (e.g., acetate, thiol, or pyridine), it has been postulated that a concerted expulsion of the substituent facilitates the nucleophilic attack on the /3-lactam carbonyl group [104][105]. However, there are also arguments for a stepwise process in which the ex-... 

Scheme 11.1 Stepwise acid-catalysis mechanism for the hydrolysis of acetals (a) and the concerted alternative (b).

Theoretical studies on 12 4-substituted phenyl acetates concluded that, in contrast to the proposed interpretation based on 13C NMR chemical shifts and ground-state destabilization calculations, the electrophilicity of the C=0 group increases due to the effect promoted by the electron-withdrawing groups in these systems.11 A DFT investigation of the alkaline hydrolysis of 4-nitrophenyl acetate has shown that a model including seven water molecules proceeds via a concerted transition state.12... 

The concept of bifunctional catalysis was first introduced to account for the unusually large catalytic efficiency of 2-hydroxypyridine in the mutarotation of tetramethylglucose (42). In this reaction, phenol acts as an acid catalyst and pyridine as a basic catalyst and it was, therefore, concluded that a compound with the phenolic hydroxyl and the basic nitrogen at the proper spacing should be able to produce a concerted attack on the sensitive bond of the reactive molecule, with a corresponding reduction of the required activation energy. A similar effect was invoked to explain the unusual pH dependence of the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate in the presence of poly-4(5)-vinylimidazole (PVI) (43). 

On the other hand, phosphorane intermediates are not expected to be involved in the hydrolysis of phosphate monoesters, so the effective observed catalysis by the carboxyl group of salicyl phosphate 3.21 [51] (Scheme 2.26) is presumed to be concerted vith nucleophilic attack. (The hydrolysis reaction involves the less abundant tautomer 3.22 of the dianion 3.21, and the acceleration is >10 -fold relative to the expected rate for the pH-independent hydrolysis of the phosphate monoester dianion of a phenol of pK 8.52.) However, this system differs from the methoxy-methyl acetals discussed above, in that there is a clear distinction between neutral nucleophiles, which react through an extended transition structure similar to 3.16 in Scheme 2.23, and anions, which do not react at a significant rate, presumably because of electrostatic repulsion. This distinction is well-established for the dianions of phosphate monoesters with good leaving groups (p-nitrophenyl [52] and... 

The rate determining step is the formation of a carbonium ion and as expected, substituents that are able to stabilize the carbonium ion will strongly accelerate the hydrolysis reaction. This effect is shown in Table 1. However, as also shown in Table 1, this is not true for ortho esters where substituent effects are much smaller than would be predicted by analogy with acetal or ketal hydrolysis, and in some cases are in the opposite direction. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that in ortho ester hydrolysis, there is very little carbonium ion character in the transition state and that in the hydrolysis of ortho esters, addition of a proton is concerted with the breaking of a C-O bond. 

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