Acid strength phenols

The most important appHcation of metal alkoxides in reactions of the Friedel-Crafts type is that of aluminum phenoxide as a catalyst in phenol alkylation (205). Phenol is sufficientiy acidic to react with aluminum with the formation of (CgH O)2Al. Aluminum phenoxide, when dissolved in phenol, greatiy increases the acidic strength. It is beheved that, similar to alkoxoacids (206) an aluminum phenoxoacid is formed, which is a strong conjugate acid of the type HAl(OCgH )4. This acid is then the catalyticaHy active species (see Alkoxides, metal). 

Equation 20 is the rate-controlling step. The reaction rate of the hydrophobes decreases in the order primary alcohols > phenols > carboxylic acids (84). With alkylphenols and carboxylates, buildup of polyadducts begins after the starting material has been completely converted to the monoadduct, reflecting the increased acid strengths of these hydrophobes over the alcohols. Polymerization continues until all ethylene oxide has reacted. Beyond formation of the monoadduct, reactivity is essentially independent of chain length. The effectiveness of ethoxylation catalysts increases with base strength. In practice, ratios of 0.005—0.05 1 mol of NaOH, KOH, or NaOCH to alcohol are frequendy used. 

Phenol has different chemical properties from those of typical alcohols. Display the electrostatic potential map for phenol. Does this suggest that phenol is likely to be a stronger or weaker acid than any of the compounds discussed above Compare the electrostatic potential map for 4-nitrophenol to that for phenol. What effect does substitution by nitro have on acid strength Explain your result by considering charge delocalization in the conjugate base. Draw all reasonable Lewis structures for phenoxide anion and for 4-nitrophenoxide anion. Which is more delocalized Is this consistent with experimental pKa s ... 

It may be noted that very weak acids, such as boric acid and phenol, which cannot be titrated potentiometrically in aqueous solution, can be titrated conductimetrically with relative ease. Mixtures of certain acids can be titrated more accurately by conductimetric than by potentiometric (pH) methods. Thus mixtures of hydrochloric acid (or any other strong acid) and acetic (ethanoic) acid (or any other weak acid of comparable strength) can be titrated with a weak base (e.g. aqueous ammonia) or with a strong base (e.g. sodium hydroxide) reasonably satisfactory end points are obtained. 

Most of the chemistry of PA is determined by its acidic nature. It is a strong acid whose ionization constant of 1.6 x 10"1 (Ref 31) makes it comparable in acid strength to pyrophosphoric acid and trichloroacetic acid. PA readily forms salts with bases and esters with alcohols. The salts are known as Picrates. Many of them are expl and will be described in a separate article in this Vol. The esters are phenol ethers, eg, Trinitro-anisolc (see Vol t, A450-L)... 

Bifunctional catalysis in nucleophilic aromatic substitution was first observed by Bitter and Zollinger34, who studied the reaction of cyanuric chloride with aniline in benzene. This reaction was not accelerated by phenols or y-pyridone but was catalyzed by triethylamine and pyridine and by bifunctional catalysts such as a-pyridone and carboxylic acids. The carboxylic acids did not function as purely electrophilic reagents, since there was no relationship between catalytic efficiency and acid strength, acetic acid being more effective than chloracetic acid, which in turn was a more efficient catalyst than trichloroacetic acid. For catalysis by the carboxylic acids Bitter and Zollinger proposed the transition state depicted by H. 

In general acid catalysis, the rate is increased not only by an increase in [SH ] but also by an increase in the concentration of other acids (e.g., in water by phenols or carboxylic acids). These other acids increase the rate even when [SH ] is held constant. In this type of catalysis the strongest acids catalyze best, so that, in the example given, an increase in the phenol concentration catalyzes the reaction much less than a similar increase in [H30 ]. This relationship between acid strength of the catalyst and its catalytic ability can be expressed by the Breasted catalysis equation ... 

The chemical character of a compound is not fundamentally altered by the introduction of a nitro-group. Thus the ring-substituted nitro-derivatives of the hydrocarbons are neutral compounds like the hydrocarbons themselves. If, however, a nitro-group enters a substance having, for instance, an acid character, then this character is thereby intensified the nitrophenols, for example, are more acidic than phenol. Correspondingly, the strength of bases is decreased by nitration the nitranilines are less basic than aniline. 

The catalytic constants measured in 95% aqueous dioxan have been compared with piT-values in water. The twenty-four acids referred to in Table 3 are mainly carboxylic acids, but also include nitric acid, o-chloro-phenol and water. Two oximes show large positive deviations, and saccharin has considerably less catalytic activity than anticipated these substances have not been included in the correlation. A number of strong acids gave closely similar catalytic constants— HCl (3-05), HBr (2-30), CoHb.SOsH (2-30), MeSOsH (2-15), HCIO (1-25)—and the minor variations within this series are not in the expected order of acid strengths HCIO4 > HBr > HCl > ObHb. SO3H > MeSOsH. Presumably all these acids are converted in solution to the hydronium ion, the catalytic power of which is somewhat modified by ion-pairing with different anions in the solvent of low dielectric constant. The catalytic constants observed are consistent with the conventional value pJT = —1-74 for H36+. 

Use the table of Ka values in Appendix E to list the conjugate bases of the following acids in order of increasing base strength formic acid, HCOOH hydrofluoric acid, HF(aq) benzoic acid, CeHsCOOH phenol, CeHsOH. 

Alcohols and phenols are acidic In nature. Electron withdrawing groups tn phenol Increase Its acidic strength and electron releasing groups decrease It. 

Conversely, if a. para substituent stabilizes the conjugate base of an acid-base pair rather more than it stabilizes the benzoate ion, more positive substituent constants are required to achieve linearity in Hammett plots. Examples of this are acid dissociations of phenols and anilinium ions, where mesomerically electron-withdrawing substituents (Y = —NO2, —C N) are more effective in enhancing acid strength than they are in benzoic acid, because charge delocalization of the type [15] is not possible in the benzoate anion. 

Since phenol has an appreciable dipole moment, and no low energy acceptor orbitals, it should interact best with the donors that have the largest lone pair dipole moment — the oxygen compounds. Iodine has no dipole moment and the interaction with iodine is expected to be essentially covalent. Iodine should interact best with the donors that have the lowest ionization potential, i.e., the ones whose charge clouds are most easily polarized. Similar considerations have been employed to explain the donor strengths of primary, secondary and tertiary amines 35a) and the acid strengths of (35b) ICl, Bt2, I2. CeHsOH and SO2. 

An additional comparison between calculated and experimental relative acid strengths for substituted phenols relative to the parent compound is found in Appendix A6 (Tables A6-50). 

Problem 19.12 What are the effects of ( ) electron-attracting and (b) electron-releasing substituents on the acid strength of phenols ... 

Problem 19,14 Assign numbers from 1 for least to 4 for most to indicate the relative acid strengths in the following groups (a) phenol, m-chlorophenol, m-nitrophenol, m-cresol (b) phenol, benzoic acid, p-nitro-phenol, carbonic acid (c) phenol, p-chlorophenol, p-nitrophenol, p-cresol (d) phenol, o-nitrophenol, m-nitrophenol, p-nitrophenol (e) phenol, p-chlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol (/) phenol, benzyl alcohol, benzenesulfonic acid, benzoic acid. ... 

A similar increase in acid strength is produced by other groups such as cyanide and aldehyde. Thus Ka for o-hydroxybenzonitrile (in 50-50 by weight ethanol-water solution) is 4.5 X 10 9, the increase in acidity over phenol being due to resonance with structures such as... 

Zeolite polarity and reaction rate The competition between sulfolane, PA and product molecules for the adsorption on the active protonic sites is sufficient enough to explain the differences in reaction orders and catalyst stability and selectivity between PA transformation in sulfolane and in dodecane. However, the competition for the occupancy of the zeolite micropores plays a significant role as well. This was demonstrated by studying a related reaction the transformation of an equimolar mixture of PA with phenol in sulfolane solvent on a series of H-BEA samples with different framework Si/Al ratios (from 15 to 90).[49] According to the largely accepted next nearest neighbour model,[50,51] the protonic sites of these zeolites should not differ by their acid strength, as furthermore confirmed by the... 

The varying acidic strengths of ethanoic acid, phenol and ethanol can be explained by considering the relative stabilities of their conjugate bases ... 

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