Aromaticity chemical bond interpretation

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. 

The observed planarity and bond length equalization in 1,3,2-diazaphospholenium cations likewise suggest that these compounds have substantial n-electron delocalization and possess possibly aromatic character. Several studies were undertaken to quantify the degree of n-delocalization by computational calculations using the interpretation of population analyses, ELF calculations, evaluation of magnetic criteria [nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS) values], and the... 

Another illustrative example is that of phenylacetylene. Table 6-7 summarizes the H NMR chemical shifts of its alkyne H-atom in a variety of solvents [273], Most solvents (except aromatic solvents) decrease the shielding of the acetylenic hydrogen nuclei. The corresponding low-field shifts have been interpreted in terms of weak specific association between the alkyne as hydrogen-bond-donor and electron pair-donor groupings of the solvent [273], The high-field shifts in aromatic solvents arise from the magnetic anisotropy of the solvent molecules (see below). The order of effectiveness of the solvent... 

In the same way as the a, -separation has been performed, one can proceed to a cr, rr-separation.52 This separation has been used to evaluate the aromaticity of organic molecules and clusters. An index of aromaticity was proposed using a scale based on the bifurcation analysis of the ELF constructed from the separated densities. In principle, the total ELF has no information about tt and cr bonds, it depends only on the total density. Hence, the ELF does not show clear differences between both kinds of bonds. However, the topological analysis over separated densities, ones formed by the rr-orbitals and the other ones formed by the cr-orbitals, yields the necessary information.52 Of course, this is possible only for the molecules which present the cr, tt symmetries, i.e. planar molecules. The bifurcation analysis of the news ELFW and ELFCT can be interpreted as a measure of the interaction among the different basins and chemically, as a measure of electron delocalization.45 In this way, the tt and a aromaticity for the set of planar molecules described in the Scheme 1 has been characterized.52... 

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