Azide clock method

Both these parameters reflect a moderate stability for BrN3 in methanol. This feature made it impossible to apply the azide clock method to determine the lifetime of the ionic intermediates arising from deactivated alkenes (for example, / ,p -bis(trifluoromethyl)stilbenes). Nevertheless, for a couple of p-methoxy substituted stilbenes and unsubstituted stilbenes the selectivity ratios reported in Table II have been found. (IT)... 

The determination of the lifetime of the ionic intermediates using the azide-clock method has been however useful in showing that electrophilic addition of Br2 can occur, even through a fully concerted mechanism, definable as SN2-like. Bromination of cyclic enol ethers (glycals) 8-10 in methanol in the presence of... 

Lifetimes of the ionic intermediates of nucleophilic substitution are generally correlated to the pathways followed under given reaction conditions. Information on the lifetimes of ionic intermediates formed by bromine addition to olefins in methanol, as determined by the azide clock method, do not allow the different reaction pathways to be distin-... 

Figure 13.62. Azide clock method for determining arylnitrenium ion reaction rate constants.

Azide/solvent selectivity data in predominately aqueous solution have been collected for over 30 nitrenium ions either by the azide clock method or by direct measurement of k - and k on ions generated by laser flash... 

Shortly after Anderson and Falvey reported the first observation of a shortlived nitrenium ion in CH3CN by UV spectroscopy, Novak and McClelland and co-workers demonstrated that the nitrenium ions 75h and 75o could be observed in aqueous solution after LFP of the pivalic acid ester 76h, the sulfuric acid ester 76o, and its N-chloro analogue N-chloro-4-phenylacetanilide. The transients with A ax of ca. 450 nm were identified as singlet nitrenium ions, based on the kinetics of their decomposition in the presence of NJ, the equivalence of kaz/ks determined by the azide clock method and by direct observation, the lack of sensitivity of the transients to O2, product studies that showed similar products from solvolytic and photolytic decomposition of N-chloro-4-phenylacetanilide, and identical transient UV spectra for 75o derived either from 76o or its N-chloro analogue. A comparison of azide/solvent selectivity data obtained by azide clock and direct observation of 7Sh and 75o is presented in Table 1. 

The reaction of azide ions with carbocations is the basis of the azide clock method for estimating carbocation lifetimes in hydroxylic solvents (lifetime = 1 lkiy where lq, is the first-order rate constant for attack of water on the carbocation) this is analogous to the radical clock technique discussed in Chapter 10. In the present case, a rate-product correlation is assumed for the very rapid competing product-forming steps of SN1 reactions (Scheme 2.24). Because the slow step of an SN1 reaction is formation of a carbocation, typical kinetic data do not provide information about this step. Furthermore, the rate constant for the reaction of azide ion with a carbocation (kaz) is assumed to be diffusion controlled (ca. 5 x 109 M 1 s 1). The rate constant for attack by water can then be obtained from the mole ratio of azide product/solvolysis product, and the molar concentrations of azide (Equation 2.18, equivalent to Equation 2.14) [48]. The reliability of the estimated lifetimes was later... 

The rate constants for the solvent-recombination process of the carbocations [3C (X,Y,Z)] were determined by the use of the azide clock method (Richard etal., 1984 Richard and Jencks, 1984a,b,c McClelland et al., 1991) and the rate constant of the forward reaction was derived using (38b) as /Ch = /CwXr+ (McClelland et al., 1989,1991). While ordinary Hammett-type relationships were found to be inapplicable to the substituent effects on solvent recombination, there is a rate-equilibrium correlation for all available data on triarylmethyl cations, shown as the linear log/c , vs. p/Cr<- plot, in Fig. 34 with a slope of 0.64. Such a relationship was earlier suggested by Arnett and Hofelich (1983) and Ritchie (1986). The correlation of ky, with the cr scale was... 

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