Acid-dissociation constant measuring

To evaluate the dissociation constants it would be necessary to measure the equDibrium constant for the reaction in Scheme 4. The dissociation of thiazolecarboxylic acids has been studied principally by Erlenmeyer et al. (47, 48). It seems that no systematic and reliable determination of the acidity dissociation constants have been realized until now. 

The strength of a weak acid is measured by its acid dissociation constant, which IS the equilibrium constant for its ionization m aqueous solution... 

The C—H bonds of hydrocarbons show little tendency to ionize and alkanes alkenes and alkynes are all very weak acids The acid dissociation constant for methane for exam pie IS too small to be measured directly but is estimated to be about 10 ° (pK 60)... 

The numerical values of the terms a and p are defined by specifying the ionization of benzoic acids as the standard reaction to which the reaction constant p = 1 is assigned. The substituent constant, a, can then be determined for a series of substituent groups by measurement of the acid dissociation constant of the substituted benzoic acids. The a values so defined are used in the correlation of other reaction series, and the p values of the reactions are thus determined. The relationship between Eqs. (4.12) and (4.14) is evident when the Hammett equation is expressed in terms of fiee energy. For the standard reaction, o%K/Kq = ap. Thus,... 

In the discussion of the relative acidity of carboxylic acids in Chapter 1, the thermodynamic acidity, expressed as the acid dissociation constant, was taken as the measure of acidity. It is straightforward to determine dissociation constants of such adds in aqueous solution by measurement of the titration curve with a pH-sensitive electrode (pH meter). Determination of the acidity of carbon acids is more difficult. Because most are very weak acids, very strong bases are required to cause deprotonation. Water and alcohols are far more acidic than most hydrocarbons and are unsuitable solvents for generation of hydrocarbon anions. Any strong base will deprotonate the solvent rather than the hydrocarbon. For synthetic purposes, aprotic solvents such as ether, tetrahydrofuran (THF), and dimethoxyethane (DME) are used, but for equilibrium measurements solvents that promote dissociation of ion pairs and ion clusters are preferred. Weakly acidic solvents such as DMSO and cyclohexylamine are used in the preparation of strongly basic carbanions. The high polarity and cation-solvating ability of DMSO facilitate dissociation... 

Grunwald, E. Berkowitz, B. J., The measurement and correlation of acid dissociation constants for carboxylic acids in the system ethanol-water. Activity coefficients and empirical activity functions, j. Am. Chem. Soc. 73, 4939 -944 (1951). 

Bacarella, A. L. Grunwald, E. Marshall, H. R Purlee, E. L., The potentiometric measurement of acid dissociation constants and pH in the system methanol-water. pKa values for carboxylic acids and anilinium ions, j. Org. Chem. 20, 747-762 (1955). 

To conduct meaningful mechanistic and kinetic studies in alcohol media reliable and simple measurement and control of the solution jjpH is essential. Potentiometric titration is the method of choice for obtaining acid dissociation constants or metal ion complex stability constants and in favorable cases the speciation of mixtures of metal-ion-containing complexes in solution can be proposed.20 Titrations in non-aqueous solvents are not nearly as widely reported as those in aqueous media, particularly in cases with metal ions21 and determination of pH in a non-aqueous solvent referenced to that solvent is complicated due to the lack of a way to relate the electrode EMF readings to absolute jjpH (see footnote and ref. 6) so non-aqueous solvents are generally inconvenient to use22 for detailed studies of reaction mechanisms where pH control is required. 

Ka is known as the acid dissociation constant it is a measure of the strength of an acid in a particular solvent, which should be specified. 

Conventional absorptiometric and fluorimetric pH indicators show a shift of band positions in absorption and emission spectra between the protonated and deprotonated forms. This feature allows the spectroscopic measurement of the acid dissociation constant in the ground state, Ka, and also the evaluation of the dissociation constant in the excited state, Ka (Eq. (5.5)), from the Forster cycle under the assumption of equivalent entropies of reaction in the two states.<109 112)... 

The isotope effect on the acid dissociation constants for H20 and D20 has been carefully measured by many workers, most notably Paabo and Bates working at the US Bureau of Standards. Comparing the reactions 2 H20 = H30+ + OH- and 2 D20 = D30+ + OD they found... 

The value of / has been determined by NMR measurements on the mixed solvent as 0.69+0.02 and is not to be interpreted as an independent fitting parameter. With / established, can be calculated from the acid dissociation constants in pure H20 and D20, and Equation 11.68 interpreted as a zero parameter theoretical prediction of... 

The p/<, of a base is actually that of its conjugate acid. As the numeric value of the dissociation constant increases (i.e., pKa decreases), the acid strength increases. Conversely, as the acid dissociation constant of a base (that of its conjugate acid) increases, the strength of the base decreases. For a more accurate definition of dissociation constants, each concentration term must be replaced by thermodynamic activity. In dilute solutions, concentration of each species is taken to be equal to activity. Activity-based dissociation constants are true equilibrium constants and depend only on temperature. Dissociation constants measured by spectroscopy are concentration dissociation constants." Most piCa values in the pharmaceutical literature are measured by ignoring activity effects and therefore are actually concentration dissociation constants or apparent dissociation constants. It is customary to report dissociation constant values at 25°C. 

You can determine the value of for a particular acid by measuring the pH of a solution. In the following investigation, you will add sodium hydroxide to acetic acid, which is a weak acid. (See Figure 8.8.) By graphing pH against the volume of sodium hydroxide that you added, you will be able to calculate the concentration of the acetic acid. Then you will be able to determine the acid dissociation constant, Ka, for this acid. 

Hydrogen bond formation between dissimilar molecules is an example of adduct formation, since the hydrogen atom that is bonded to an electronegative atom, such as oxygen or nitrogen, is a typical acceptor atom. The ability of molecules to donate a hydrogen bond is measured by their Taft-Kamlet solvatochromic parameter, a, (or a . for the monomer of self-associating solutes) (see Table 2.3). This is also a measure of their acidity (in the Lewis sense, see later, or the Brpnsted sense, if pro tic). Acetic acid, for instance, has a = 1.12, compared with 0.61 for phenol. However, this parameter is not necessarily correlated with the acid dissociation constant in aqueous solutions. 

Biguanides usually behave as mono- and di-acid bases, combining with H+ ions to form the conjugate acid, but may also act as acids. The acid dissociation constants of many biguanides have been measured, and are collected in Tables 1 and 2. 

The most widely studied physical property of carbanions is their basicity, which of course is a direct measure of the acidity of the parent carbon acid. Carbon acidity measurements date back to the early part of the twentieth century and a myriad of techniques have been employed for the measurements. Although early measurements were only able to provide semiquantitative data, more recent ones have resulted in accurate acidity measurements across a vast range of effective acid dissociation constants, Ka values. This section will begin with a brief description of definitions and methodologies followed by representative data as well as applications of those data. 

To measure the amount of dissociation occurring when a weak acid is in aqueous solution, chemists use a constant called the acid dissociation constant (KJ. is a specicil variety of the equilibrium constant. As we explain in Chapter 14, the equilibrium constant of a chemical reaction is the concentration of products over the concentration of reactants, and it indicates the balance between products and reactants in a reaction. 

Kg refers to the acid dissociation constant which is the measure of an acid s strength. Some references call the acid ionization constant. 

Bruice and Schmir (3) have shown that for a series of imidazole derivatives, klm depends on the base strength of the catalyst and since pKA is an approximate measure of base strength, the value of klm should increase with increase in pKA. Table I shows that this is indeed the case. Imidazole, pKA = 7.08, has a catalytic constant eight times larger than that of benzimidazole, pKA = 5.53. Bronsted and Guggenheim (2) have obtained a linear relationship between log k/ and pKA for a series of carboxylic acids in the pKA range of 2 to 5, where kB is the carboxvlate anion basic catalytic constant for the mutarotation of glucose and Ka is the acid dissociation constant of the acid. Our results for imidazole and benzimidazole fit fairly well into the Bronsted plot. 

It is possible to compare the strengths of weak acids by the values of their acid dissociation constants Ka. Figure 3.1 shows the titration curves for acids (HA or BH+) of different Ka values. The ordinate shows poH, which is defined by paH = -loga(SI I)). paH corresponds to the pH in aqueous solutions (see Section 3.2). The poH of non-aqueous solutions can be measured with a glass pH electrode or some other pH sensors (see Sections 3.2.1 and 6.2). For the mixture of a weak acid A and its conjugate base B, poH can be expressed by the Henderson-Hassel-balch equation ... 

Singlet excited state acid dissociation constants pK can be smaller or greater than the ground state constant pK by as much as 8 units. Phenols, thiols and aromatic amines are stronger acids upon excitation, whereas carboxylic acids, aldehydes and ketones with lowest >(71, ) states become much more basic. Triplet state constants pKr are closer to those for the ground state. Forster s cycle may be used to determine A pK =pK —pK) from fluorescence measurements if proton transfer occurs within the lifetime of the excited molecule. 

Gallium hydroxide is amphoteric, and is a much stronger acid than aluminum hydroxide. For Ga(OH)3 the first acid dissociation constant is 1.4 x 10-7 [for Al(OH)3 the value is 2 x 10-11].1 Polymerization occurs in aqueous Ga3+ solutions to which OH- is added,533 but this tendency is less than in the case of aluminum solutions (Section 25.1.5.1). The formation constants of mononuclear hydroxo complexes of Ga, including Ga(OH)4, and the hydrolysis constants of gallium ions have been measured by a competing ligand technique.534... 

The term Ka is an association constant (not to be confused with the Ka that denotes an acid dissociation constant p. 63). The association constant provides a measure of the affinity of the ligand L for the protein. Ka has units of m-1 a higher value of Ka corresponds to... 

To extract acid dissociation constants from an acid-base titration curve, we can construct a difference plot, or Bjerrum plot, which is a graph of the mean fraction of bound protons, H, versus pH. This mean fraction can be measured from the quantities of reagents that were mixed and the measured pH. The theoretical shape of the difference plot is an expression in terms of fractional compositions. Use Excel SOLVER to vary equilibrium constants to obtain the best fit of the theoretical curve to the measured points. This process minimizes the sum of squares [nH(measured) -nH( theoretical) 2. 

ES Difference plot. A solution containing 0.139 mmol of the triprotic acid tris(2-aminoethyl)amine-3HCl plus 0.115 mmol HC1 in 40 mL of 0.10 M KC1 was titrated with 0.490 5 M NaOH to measure acid dissociation constants. 

It is also common to measure by voltammetry the thermodynamic properties of purely chemical reactions that are in some way coupled to the electron transfer step. Examples include the determination of solubility products, acid dissociation constants, and metal-ligand complex formation constants for cases in which precipitation, proton transfer, and complexation reactions affect the measured formal potential. Also in these instances, studies at variable temperature will afford the thermodynamic parameters of these coupled chemical reactions. 

The inductive effect of one carboxyl group is expected to enhance the acidity of the other. In Table 18-4 we see that the acid strength of the dicarboxylic acids, as measured by the first acid-dissociation constant, K1, is higher than that of ethanoic acid (Ka = 1.5 X 10-5) and decreases with increasing number of bonds between the two carboxyl groups. The second acid-dissociation constant, K2, is smaller than Ka for ethanoic acid (with the exception of oxalic acid) because it is more difficult to remove a proton under the electrostatic attraction of the nearby carboxylate anion (see Section 18-2C). 

Acid dissociation constants have also been measured for several pyrrole carboxylic acids238-243 (Table X) and attempts have been made, by taking the reaction constant p for ionization as unity, to extrapolate the a values obtained from the ionization constants of... 

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