Aromatic substitution electron-transfer

C-Methylation products, o-nitrotoluene and p-nitrotoluene, were obtained when nitrobenzene was treated with dimethylsulfoxonium methylide (I)." The ratio for the ortho and para-methylation products was about 10-15 1 for the aromatic nucleophilic substitution reaction. The reaction appeared to proceed via the single-electron transfer (SET) mechanism according to ESR studies. 

It has been well known since the pioneering work of Bunnett59 that some nucleophilic aromatic substitutions can be catalyzed by single electron transfer. Electrochemistry was shown60,61 to be an efficient technique both for inducing reactions and for determining mechanisms and thermodynamic data concerning equilibria in the overall process. 

Arenediazonium ions can, of course, bring about electrophilic aromatic substitution giving aromatic azo-compounds. Using PhN=N and PhO , polarized signals have been observed in the N-spectrum (6 MHz) of the coupled product (A, A) and reactant, suggesting that the reaction proceeds, at least in part, by a mechanism involving preliminary reversible electron transfer between the reactants (Bubnov et al., 1972). 

Mercuration of aromatic compounds can be accomplished with mercuric salts, most often Hg(OAc)2 ° to give ArHgOAc. This is ordinary electrophilic aromatic substitution and takes place by the arenium ion mechanism (p. 675). ° Aromatic compounds can also be converted to arylthallium bis(trifluoroacetates), ArTl(OOCCF3)2, by treatment with thallium(III) trifluoroacetate in trifluoroace-tic acid. ° These arylthallium compounds can be converted to phenols, aryl iodides or fluorides (12-28), aryl cyanides (12-31), aryl nitro compounds, or aryl esters (12-30). The mechanism of thallation appears to be complex, with electrophilic and electron-transfer mechanisms both taking place. 

Electron-transfer activation of electrophilic aromatic substitution 274 Electron-transfer activation in nitrogen dioxide reactivity toward organic donors 292... 

ELECTRON-TRANSFER ACTIVATION OF ELECTROPHILIC AROMATIC SUBSTITUTION... 

The quantitative treatment of the electron-transfer paradigm in Scheme l by FERET (equation (104)) is restricted to the comparative study of a series of structurally related donors (or acceptors). Under these conditions, the reactivity differences due to electronic properties inherent to the donor (or acceptor) are the dominant factors in the charge-transfer assessment, and any differences due to steric effects are considered minor. Such a situation is sufficient to demonstrate the viability of the electron-transfer paradigm to a specific type of donor acceptor behavior (e.g. aromatic substitution, olefin addition, etc.). However, a more general consideration requires that any steric effect be directly addressed. 

For /8-substituted 7t-systems, silyl substitution causes the destabilization of the 7r-orbital (HOMO) [3,4]. The increase of the HOMO level is attributed to the interaction between the C-Si a orbital and the n orbital of olefins or aromatic systems (a-n interaction) as shown in Fig. 3 [7]. The C-Si a orbital is higher in energy than the C-C and C-H a orbitals and the energy match of the C-Si orbital with the neighboring n orbital is better than that of the C-C or C-H bond. Therefore, considerable interaction between the C-Si orbital and the n orbital is attained to cause the increase of the HOMO level. Since the electrochemical oxidation proceeds by the initial electron-transfer from the HOMO of the molecule, the increase in the HOMO level facilitates the electron transfer. Thus, the introduction of a silyl substituents at the -position results in the decrease of the oxidation potentials of the 7r-system. On the basis of this j -efleet, anodic oxidation reactions of allylsilanes, benzylsilanes, and related compounds have been developed (Sect. 3.3). 

When the nucleophile is an electron-rich molecule, RC60+ can be reduced via single electron transfer, producing a dimer (47). Thus, electrophilic aromatic substitution normally occurs with substituted benzenes (Figure 22, [A]), but the mode of the reaction is switched if the benzene is strongly activated (Figure 22, [B]). 

The nitrosonium cation can serve effectively either as an oxidant or as an electrophile towards different aromatic substrates. Thus the electron-rich polynuclear arenes suffer electron transfer with NO+BF to afford stable arene cation radicals (Bandlish and Shine, 1977 Musker et al., 1978). Other activated aromatic compounds such as phenols, anilines and indoles undergo nuclear substitution with nitrosonium species that are usually generated in situ from the treatment of nitrites with acid. It is less well known, but nonetheless experimentally established (Hunziker et al., 1971 Brownstein et al., 1984), that NO+ forms intensely coloured charge-transfer complexes with a wide variety of common arenes (30). For example, benzene, toluene,... 

Finally, we ask, if the reactive triads in Schemes 1 and 19 are common to both electrophilic and charge-transfer nitration, why is the nucleophilic pathway (k 2) apparently not pertinent to the electrophilic activation of toluene and anisole One obvious answer is that the electrophilic nitration of these less reactive [class (ii)] arenes proceeds via a different mechanism, in which N02 is directly transferred from V-nitropyridinium ion in a single step, without the intermediacy of the reactive triad, since such an activation process relates to the more conventional view of electrophilic aromatic substitution. However, the concerted mechanism for toluene, anisole, mesitylene, t-butylbenzene, etc., does not readily accommodate the three unique facets that relate charge-transfer directly to electrophilic nitration, viz., the lutidine syndrome, the added N02 effect, and the TFA neutralization (of Py). Accordingly, let us return to Schemes 10 and 19, and inquire into the nature of thermal (adiabatic) electron transfer in (87) vis-a-vis the (vertical) charge-transfer in (62). 

Nucleophilic substitution is the widely accepted reaction route for the photosubstitution of aromatic nitro compounds. There are three possible mechanisms11,12, namely (i) direct displacement (S/v2Ar ) (equation 9), (ii) electron transfer from the nucleophile to the excited aromatic substrate (SR wlAr ) (equation 10) and (iii) electron transfer from the excited aromatic compound to an appropriate electron acceptor, followed by attack of the nucleophile on the resultant aromatic radical cation (SRi w 1 Ar ) (equation 11). Substituent effects are important criteria for probing the reaction mechanisms. While the SR wlAr mechanism, which requires no substituent activation, is insensitive to substituent effects, both the S/v2Ar and the Sr+n lAr mechanisms show strong and opposite substituent effects. 

Mechanistic studies also indicate that 4-nitroveratrole (equation 20) and 4,5-dinitroveratrole (equation 21) undergo both singlet and triplet nucleophilic aromatic substitution with ethyl glycinate23. An electron transfer process competes against the nucleophilic aromatic photosubstitution for singlet excited 4-nitroveratrole, causing a decreased product yield in equation 20. 

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