Aromatic hydrocarbons, protonation

The identifiable compounds in coke-oven and petroleum pitches are mainly polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. Proton magnetic resonance spectra of solvent-soluble fractions of these materials show that over 90 of the protons are attached to aromatic rings. Under the conditions of carbonization it would... 

Cations like that present in (iv) exist in solutions of aromatic hydrocarbons in trifluoroacetic acid containing boron trifluoride, and in liquid hydrogen fluoride containing boron trifluoride. Sulphuric acid is able to protonate anthracene at a mero-position to give a similar cation. ... 

The relative basicities of aromatic hydrocarbons, as represented by the equilibrium constants for their protonation in mixtures of hydrogen fluoride and boron trifluoride, have been measured. The effects of substituents upon these basicities resemble their effects upon the rates of electrophilic substitutions a linear relationship exists between the logarithms of the relative basicities and the logarithms of the relative rate constants for various substitutions, such as chlorination and... 

Aromatic ethers and furans undergo alkoxylation by addition upon electrolysis in an alcohol containing a suitable electrolyte.Other compounds such as aromatic hydrocarbons, alkenes, A -alkyl amides, and ethers lead to alkoxylated products by substitution. Two mechanisms for these electrochemical alkoxylations are currently discussed. The first one consists of direct oxidation of the substrate to give the radical cation which reacts with the alcohol, followed by reoxidation of the intermediate radical and either alcoholysis or elimination of a proton to the final product. In the second mechanism the primary step is the oxidation of the alcoholate to give an alkoxyl radical which then reacts with the substrate, the consequent steps then being the same as above. The formation of quinone acetals in particular seems to proceed via the second mechanism. ... 

Comparison of localization energies has frequently been applied to prediction of the relative positional reactivity in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Simple HMO calculations have only marginal success. CNDO/2 and SCF calculations give results which show good correlation with experimental data on the rate of proton exchange. ... 

In the presence of a proton source, the radical anion is protonated and further reduction occurs (the Birch reduction Part B, Section 5.5.1). In general, when no proton source is present, it is relatively difficult to add a second electron. Solutions of the radical anions of aromatic hydrocarbons can be maintained for relatively long periods in the absence of oxygen or protons. 

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons dissolve in chloroaluminate(III) ionic liquids to give brightly colored solutions (due to the protonated aromatic compound [31]). The... 

Robertson et al.261 measured rates of bromination of some aromatic hydrocarbons in acetic acid containing sodium acetate (to eliminate protonation of the aromatic by liberated hydrogen bromide) and lithium bromide (to reduce the rate to a measurable velocity ) at 25 °C, the second-order rate coefficients for 3-nitro-N,N-dimethylaniline and anisole being 14.2 and 0.016 respectively the former compound was thus stated to be about 1012 times as reactive as benzene (though no measurement of the latter rate coefficient, inferred to be 1.33 xlO-11, could be found in the literature) and this large rate spread gives one further indication of the unreactive nature of the electrophile. Other rates relative to benzene were ... 

More recently it has become apparent that proton equilibria and hence pH can be equally important in aprotic and other non-aqueous solvents. For example, the addition of a proton donor, such as phenol or water, to dimethylformamide has a marked effect on the i-E curve for the reduction of a polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (Peover, 1967). In the absence of a proton donor the curve shows two one-electron reduction waves. The first electron addition is reversible and leads to the formation of the anion radical while the second wave is irreversible owing to rapid abstraction of protons from the solvent by the dicarbanion. 

MO) with the protons in the nodal plane. The mechanism of coupling (discussed below) requires contact between the unpaired electron and the proton, an apparent impossibility for n electrons that have a nodal plane at the position of an attached proton. A third, pleasant, surprise was the ratio of the magnitudes of the two couplings, 5.01 G/1.79 G = 2.80. This ratio is remarkably close to the ratio of spin densities at the a and (3 positions, 2.62, predicted by simple Hiickel MO theory for an electron placed in the lowest unoccupied MO (LUMO) of naphthalene (see Table 2.1). This result led to Hiickel MO theory being used extensively in the semi-quantitative interpretation of ESR spectra of aromatic hydrocarbon anion and cation radicals. 

For aromatic hydrocarbon radical anions, this approach works pretty well. Figure 2.7 shows a correlation plot of observed hyperfine splitting versus the spin density calculated from Hiickel MO theory. It also correctly predicts the negative sign of aH for protons attached to n systems. 

Scheme 2.19 depicts a typical example of the coupling of acid-base reactions, here protonations, with electron transfer. In a dry aprotic solvent [e.g., /V./V-dimethylformamide (DMF)], an aromatic hydrocarbon such as anthracene exhibits two successive reversible cyclic voltammetric waves (suspensions of neutral alumina may be used efficiently to dry the solvent... 

FIGURE 2.34. a Reductive cyclic voltammetry of an aromatic hydrocarbon (e.g., anthracene) in an aprotic solvent (e.g., DMF) upon successive additions of a weak acid (e.g., phenol), b Thermodynamics of the combined addition of two electrons and two protons. 

Except for these studies of their protonation behavior, almost the only other aspect of the chemistry of sulfonic acids that has been investigated to any extent from a mechanistic point of view is the desulfonation of aromatic sulfonic acids or sulfonates. Since this subject has been well reviewed by Cerfontain (1968), and since the reaction is really more of interest as a type of electrophilic aromatic substitution than as sulfur chemistry, we shall not deal with it here. One should note that the mechanism of formation of aromatic sulfonic acids by sulfonation of aromatic hydrocarbons has also been intensively investigated, particularly by Cerfontain and his associates, and several... 

Most fluorescent PET molecular sensors, including pH indicators of this type, consist of a fluorophore linked to an amine moiety via a methylene spacer. Photo-induced electron transfer (see Chapter 4, Section 4.3), which takes place from amino groups to aromatic hydrocarbons, causes fluorescence quenching of the latter. When the amino group is protonated (or strongly interacts with a cation), electron transfer is hindered and a very large enhancement of fluorescence is observed. 

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