Aromatic valence bond

The 1,2- and 1,4-quinone methides are formally neutral molecules. However, the zwitterionic aromatic valence bond resonance structures (Scheme 1) make an important contribution to their structure. This combination of neutral and zwitterionic valence bond structures confers a distinctive chemical reactivity to quinone methides, which has attracted the interest of many chemists and biochemists. 

During my early years as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, I demonstrated the synthesis of a simple quinone methide as the product of the nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction of water at a highly destabilized 4-methoxybenzyl carbocation. I was struck by the notion that the distinctive chemical reactivity of quinone methides is related to the striking combination of neutral nonaromatic and zwitterionic aromatic valence bond resonance structures that contribute to their hybrid resonance structures. This served as the starting point for the interpretation of the results of our studies on nucleophile addition to quinone methides. At the same time, many other talented chemists have worked to develop methods for the generation of quinone methides and applications for these compounds in organic syntheses and chemical biology. The chapter coauthored with Maria Toteva presents an overview of this work. 

Valence Bond Isomers of Aromatic Compounds Stabilized by Trifluoromethyl Groups Kohayashi Y Kumadaki, I Acc Chem Res 14 76-82 46... 

Perfluocoalkyl groups thermodynamically destabilize double bonds and small rings, but they can kineiically stabilize highly stramed molecules [75]. This remarkable perfluoroalkyl effect has made possible the isolation of stmctures that are uncommon m hydrocarbon chemistry, especially valence-bond isomers of aromatics and heteroaromatics such as 1, 2, and 3 [108],... 

Kobayashi, Y., and Kumadaki, I. Valence-Bond Isomer of Aromatic Compounds. 123, 103-150... 

Cooper, D. L., Gerratt, J., and Raimondi, M. The Spin-Coupled Valence Bond Description of Benzenoid Aromatic Molecules. 153, 41-56 (1990). 

The idea that the properties of many organic compounds, especially the aromatic compounds, cannot be simply correlated with a single valence-bond structure, but require the assignment of a somewhat more complex electronic structure, was developed during the period 1923 to 1926 by a number of chemists, including Lowry, Lapworth, Robinson, and Ingold in England, Lucas... 

In recent years it has become clear that the structure of metals and alloys may be described in terms of covalent bonds that resonate among the alternative interatomic positions in the metals, and that this resonance is of greater importance for metals than for substances of any Other class, including the aromatic hydrocarbons. Moreover, the phenomenon of metallic resonance of the valency bonds must be given explicit consideration in the discussion of metallic valency it is necessary in deducing the metallic valency from the number of available electrons and bond orbitals to assign to one orbital a special r le in the metallic resonance. 

A fragment is an atom or group of atoms bounded by ICs and all except hydrogen are considered polar. A fragment may have many internal bonds, but those connecting it to ICs are called valence bonds. Valence bonds are most often single, but can be aromatic. Polar fragments can interact in various ways. 

Heterocyclic systems have played an important role in this historical development. In addition to pyridine and thiophene mentioned earlier, a third heterocyclic system with one heteroatom played a crucial part protonation and methylation of 4//-pyrone were found by J. N. Collie and T. Tickle in 1899 to occur at the exocyclic oxygen atom and not at the oxygen heteroatom, giving a first hint for the jr-electron sextet theory based on the these arguments.36 Therefore, F. Arndt, who proposed in 1924 a mesomeric structure for 4//-pyrone, should also be considered among the pioneers who contributed to the theory of the aromatic sextet.37 These ideas were later refined by Linus Pauling, whose valence bond theory (and the electronegativity, resonance and hybridization concepts) led to results similar to Hiickel s molecular orbital theory.38... 

Generalized valence bond interaction energies were computed for mono/poly-nitrogenous five- and six-membered heterocycles.203 Results that diverged from those obtained by other methods were obtained only for poly-nitrogenous systems such as pyridazine, benzotriazole, and tetrazole, which may confirm Bird s earlier finding123 204 that electron delocalization is not a stand-alone and direct measure of aromaticity for nitrogenous heterocyclic compounds. 

Hiickel s application of this approach to the aromatic compounds gave new confidence to those physicists and chemists following up on the Hund-Mulliken analysis. It was regarded by many people as the simplest of the quantum mechanical valence-bond methods based on the Schrodinger equation. 66 Hiickel s was part of a series of applications of the method of linear combination of atom wave functions (atomic orbitals), a method that Felix Bloch had extended from H2+ to metals in 1928 and that Fowler s student, Lennard-Jones, had further developed for diatomic molecules in 1929. Now Hiickel extended the method to polyatomic molecules.67... 

Using a valence bond scheme parametrized with an effective Hamiltonian technique, it was shown that the mechanistic preference for a synchronous pathway with an aromatic transition state versus a non-synchronous mechanism via biradicaloid intermediate can be controlled by two factors (1) the stability of the long bond in the Dewar valence bond structure, and (2) the softness of the Coulomb interaction between the end methylene groups in the 1,5-diene chain. This means that the mechanism of rearrangement (equation 153) can strongly depend on substituents218. 

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