Anthracene, bromination

Some polynuclear aromatics, such as anthracene, can be brominated without a catalyst (23)... 

Dehydrobenzene or benzyne 158 can be trapped by all manner of species. 1,2-Dehydro-o-carborane 159 has been shown to undergo many of the same reactions as its two-dimensional relative, 1,2-dehydrobenzene. Although dehydroaromatic molecules can be formed in a variety of ways, synthetic pathways to 1,2-dehydro-o-carborane are quite limited. An effective procedure reported so far78 first forms the dianion by deprotonation of o-carborane with 2 equiv. of butyllithium. Precipitated dilithium carborane is then treated with 1 equiv. of bromine at 0°C to form the soluble bromo anion 160. Thermolysis of 160 with anthracene, furan, and thiophene as substrates leads to the adducts 161-164.79 80 1,2-Dehydro-o-carborane reacts with norbomadiene to give both homo 2+4 and 2+2 addition, leading to three products 165-167, in a 7 1 ratio79. An acyclic diene, 2,3-dimethyl-... 

When methyl bromide was heated to 550 °C in the absence of oxygen, methane, hydrobromic acid, hydrogen, bromine, ethyl bromide, anthracene, pyrene, and free radicals were produced (Chaigneau et al, 1966). 

The bromination products of the impurities with which commercial anthracene is contaminated appear to be more soluble in carbon tetrachloride than in 9,10-dibromoanthracene the yield can be slightly increased by fractional recrystallization of the products contained in the original mother liquor, but... 

The only preparative method to be found in the literature 1 consists in the bromination of anthracene in dilute carbon disulfide solution. 

The resonance energies of fused systems increase as the number of principal canonical forms increases, as predicted by rule 6 (p. 35).75 Thus, for benzene, naphthalene, anthracene, and phenanthrene, for which we can draw, respectively, two, three, four, and five principal canonical forms, the resonance energies are, respectively, 36, 61, 84, and 92 kcal/mol (152, 255, 351, and 385 kJ/mol), calculated from heat-of-combustion data.76 Note that when phenanthrene, which has a total resonance energy of 92 kcal/mol (385 kJ/mol), loses the 9,10 bond by attack of a reagent such as ozone or bromine, two complete benzene rings remain, each with 36 kcal/mol (152 kJ/mol) that would be lost if benzene was similarly attacked. The fact that anthracene undergoes many reactions across the 9,10 positions can... 

There are principally two different approaches of correlating experimental rate data of electrophilic substitution with reactivity indices (1) Correlating the index with the rate data of a given reaction, e.g. bromination. For example, a satisfying correlation of Dewar reactivity numbers with the log of rate constants of the bromination of benzene, naphthalene (1- and 2-position), biphenyl (4-position), phenanthrene (9-position), and anthracene (9-position) has been observed [55]. In correlations of this type the reactivity index corresponds to the reactivity constant in the Hammett equation while the slope of the linear correlation corresponds to the reaction constant (see also Sect. 3) (2) correlating the index with experimental a values. 

Unlike vicinal dibromides such as 1,2-dibromoethane [124] and //mr-10,11-dibromodibenzosuberone [125] which undergo photochemical loss of bromine followed by facile thermal cleavage of the second C—Br bond, 2-(l,2-dibromo-ethyl)naphthalene (211) and 2-bromo-9-(l,2-dibromoethyl)anthracene (212) [126] require two photons for complete debromination (Scheme 9). 

As noted above, the first definition of "aromaticity" was in terms of substitution rather than addition. This is certainly true for many benzene derivatives. However, it must be used with some care since thiophene is by most criteria about as "aromatic" as benzene, but when treated with chlorine or bromine it gives an addition product. The latter is, however, the kinetically controlled product, for when heated or treated with base it loses hydrogen halide and gives the 2-halothiophene.20 Compounds such as anthracene and phenanthrene, which are recognized as having considerable resonance stabilization, also undergo addition reactions. 

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