Benzene rings Friedel-Crafts electrophiles

All of the Friedel-Crafts reactions discussed thus far have resulted from intermolecular reaction of a benzene ring with an electrophile. Starting materials that contain both units are capable of intramolecular reaction, and this forms a new ring. For example, treatment of compound A, which contains both a benzene ring and an acid chloride, with AICI3, forms a-tetralone by an intramolecular Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction. 

Friedel-Crafts electrophiles do not attack strongly deactivated benzene rings... 

Laurino examined a similar method in which methanesulfonanilides were alkylated with bromoacetaldehyde diethyl acetal and then cyclized with TiCU[4J. 1 hese methods presumably involve generation of an electrophilic intermediate from the acetal functionality, followed by an intramolecular Friedel-Crafts reaction. As a consequence, the cyclization is favoured by ER substituents and retarded by EW groups on the benzene ring. 

The most notable chemistry of the biscylopen-tadienyls results from the aromaticity of the cyclopentadienyl rings. This is now far too extensively documented to be described in full but an outline of some of its manifestations is in Fig. 25.14. Ferrocene resists catalytic hydrogenation and does not undergo the typical reactions of conjugated dienes, such as the Diels-Alder reaction. Nor are direct nitration and halogenation possible because of oxidation to the ferricinium ion. However, Friedel-Crafts acylation as well as alkylation and metallation reactions, are readily effected. Indeed, electrophilic substitution of ferrocene occurs with such facility compared to, say, benzene (3 x 10 faster) that some explanation is called for. It has been suggested that. 

Among the most useful electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions In the laboratory is alkylation—the introduction of an alkyl group onto the benzene ring. Called the Friedel-Crafts reaction after its discoverers, the reaction is carried out... 

The chemistry of pyrrole is similar to that of activated benzene rings. In general, however, the heterocycles are more reactive toward electrophiles than benzene rings are, and low temperatures are often necessary to control the reactions. Halogenation, nitration, sulfonation, and Friedel-Crafts acylation can all be accomplished. For example ... 

Friedel-Crafts-type polyalkylations of alkyl-substituted benzenes with Ic become less difficult as the number of electron-donating methyl groups on the benzene ring increases. This is consistent with the fact that the alkylation occurs via an electrophilic substitution. The tendency of starting methylbenzenes to form rearranged products also increases in the same order from toluene to mesitylene. 

The Friedel-Crafts alkylation of aromatic compounds by oxetanes in the presence of aluminum chloride is mechanistically similar to the solvolyses above, since the first step is electrophilic attack on the ring oxygen by aluminum chloride, followed by a nucleophilic attack on an a-carbon atom by the aromatic compound present. The reaction of 2-methyloxetane and 2-phenyloxetane with benzene, toluene and mesitylene gave 3-aryl-3 -methyl-1-propanols and 3-aryl-3-phenyl-l-propanols as the main products and in good yields (equation 27). Minor amounts of 3-chloro-l-butanol and 4-chloro-2-butanol are formed as by-products from 2-methyloxetane, and of 3-phenyl-l-propanol from 2-phenyloxetane (73ACS3944). 

Direct electrophilic substitution of benz- and dibenz-azepines remains relatively unexplored. Most substituted benzazepines have been prepared from benzene precursors bearing the desired substituents (74AHC(17)45). The bulk of the reported electrophilic substitutions have been carried out on 5//-dibenz[6,/]azepine (74CRV101), MO calculations on which predict that substitution should occur at the 2- and 4-positions, i.e. para and ortho to the azepine ring nitrogen. These predictions are borne out by Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation studies, although it is apparent that a second alkyl group enters at the 8- rather than at the 4-position. Formylation under Vilsmeier conditions yields the 2-aldehyde. As noted earlier (Section 5.16.3.4), however, the 10,11-dihydro system exhibits different behavior and acylates at the benzylic 10,11-positions. Nitration with mixed acids of the... 

Substituents on the benzene rings exert their usual influence on the orientation and ease of electrophilic substitution reactions. For example, further nitration (HN03-H2S04-S03) of nitroquino-lines occurs meta to the nitro group as shown in diagrams (593) and (594). Friedel-Crafts acylation of 8-methoxyquinoline succeeds (cf. 595) although this reaction fails with quinoline itself. 

An alkyl group can be added to a benzene molecule by an electrophile aromatic substitution reaction called the Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction. One example is the addition of a methyl group to a benzene ring. 

In both this reaction and the nitration of toluene we used to make benzocaine, the reagent is a cation MeCO+ for the Friedel-Crafts and NC>2+ for the nitration. Our first choice on disconnecting a bond to a benzene ring is to look for a cationic reagent so that we can use electrophilic aromatic substitution. We know not only which bond to break but also in which sense electronically to break it. In principle we could have chosen either polarity from the same disconnection a (we actually chose) or b (we did not). 

Two of the reactions that are used in the industrial preparation of detergents are electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions. First, a large hydrocarbon group is attached to a benzene ring by a Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction employing tetrapropene as the source of the carbocation electrophile. The resulting alkylbenzene is then sulfonated by reaction with sulfuric acid. Deprotonation of the sulfonic acid with sodium hydroxide produces the detergent. 

Carbocations are perhaps the most important electrophiles capable of substituting onto aromatic rings, because this substitution forms a new carbon-carbon bond. Reactions of carbocations with aromatic compounds were first studied in 1877 by the French alkaloid chemist Charles Friedel and his American partner, James Crafts. In the presence of Lewis acid catalysts such as aluminum chloride (A1C13) or ferric chloride (FeCl3), alkyl halides were found to alkylate benzene to give alkylbenzenes. This useful reaction is called the Friedel-Crafts alkylation. 

We started this chapter by comparing phenols with enols (Ph-enol is the phenyl enol) and now we return to them and look at electrophilic substitution in full detail. You will find that the reaction is much easier than it was with benzene itself because phenols are like enols and the same reactions (bromination, nitration, sulfonations, and Friedel-Crafts reactions) occur more easily. There is a new question too the positions round the phenol ring are no longer equivalent—where does substitution take place ... 

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