Benzyl cations carbocation

The diarylmethyl cations listed in Table 5.1 are 6-7pATr+ units less stable than the corresponding triarylmethyl cations. This indicates that the additional aryl group has a cumulative, although not necessarily additive, effect on stability of the carbocation. Primary benzylic cations (monparylmethyl cations) are generally not sufficiently stable for determination of pATr+ values. A particularly stable benzylic ion, the 2,4,6-trimethyl-phenylmefliyl cation, has a pATr+ of — 17.4. 

We saw in Section 6.9 that the stability order of alkyl carbocations is 3° > 2° > 1° > —CH3. To this list we must also add the resonance-stabilized allvl and benzyl cations. Just as allylic radicals are unusually stable because the... 

Indeed, cumyl carbocations are known to be effective initiators of IB polymerization, while the p-substituted benzyl cation is expected to react effectively with IB (p-methylstyrene and IB form a nearly ideal copolymerization system ). Severe disparity between the reactivities of the vinyl and cumyl ether groups of the inimer would result in either linear polymers or branched polymers with much lower MW than predicted for an in/mcr-mediated living polymerization. Styrene was subsequently blocked from the tert-chloride chain ends of high-MW DIB, activated by excess TiCU (Scheme 7.2). 

As another example, the tropylium ion [3 ], which is stabilized by virtue of the 67t electrons spread over a heptagonal sp hybridized carbon framework [Hiickel s (4n 4- 2)v rule with = 1], is also unstable in the gas phase. Its formation from toluene or the benzyl cation has been a long-standing problem in organic mass spectrometry, and the reaction mechanism and energetics have recently been exhaustively discussed (Lif-shitz, 1994). It was, however, isolated as the bromide salt by Doering and Knox (1954, 1957), and was the first non-benzenoid aromatic carbocation. 

The behavior of the isomeric dihydronaphthalenes emphasizes the importance of the relative stabilities of carbocation intermediates in ionic hydrogenations. Treatment of 1,2-dihydronaphthalene with Et3SiH/TFA at 50-60° gives a 90% yield of tetralin after one hour. Under the same conditions, the 1,4-dihydronaphthalene isomer gives less than 5% of tetralin after 70 hours.224 This difference in reactivity is clearly related to the relatively accessible benzylic cation formed upon protonation of the 1,2-isomer compared to the less stable secondary cation formed from the 1,4-isomer.224... 

Alkenes are scavengers that are able to differentiate between carbenes (cycloaddition) and carbocations (electrophilic addition). The reactions of phenyl-carbene (117) with equimolar mixtures of methanol and alkenes afforded phenylcyclopropanes (120) and benzyl methyl ether (121) as the major products (Scheme 24).51 Electrophilic addition of the benzyl cation (118) to alkenes, leading to 122 and 123 by way of 119, was a minor route (ca. 6%). Isobutene and enol ethers gave similar results. The overall contribution of 118 must be more than 6% as (part of) the ether 121 also originates from 118. Alcohols and enol ethers react with diarylcarbenium ions at about the same rates (ca. 109 M-1 s-1), somewhat faster than alkenes (ca. 108 M-1 s-1).52 By extrapolation, diffusion-controlled rates and indiscriminate reactions are expected for the free (solvated) benzyl cation (118). In support of this notion, the product distributions in Scheme 24 only respond slightly to the nature of the n bond (alkene vs. enol ether). The formation of free benzyl cations from phenylcarbene and methanol is thus estimated to be in the range of 10-15%. However, the major route to the benzyl ether 121, whether by ion-pair collapse or by way of an ylide, cannot be identified. 

Estimating stability it is possible to apply criteria commonly used in organic chemistry. Tertiary alkyl carbocation is more stable than the secondary one which is in its turn more stable than the primary one. For the carbon ions of this type the row of the stability is reversed. Allyl and benzyl cations are stable due to the resonance stabilization. The latter having four resonance structures may rearrange to be energetically favorable in the gas phase tropilium cation possessing seven resonance forms (Scheme 5.3). 

Energies for various possible arenium ions and regioisomeric benzylic cations were computed at the DFT B3LYP/6-31G(d) level or by AMI for comparison with the experimental results. These findings provided further evidence in support of the stability sequence 1-pyrenyl > 4-pyrenyl > 2-pyrenyl in a-pyrene-substituted carbocations as models for the intermediates arising from BaP-epoxide ring opening (Fig. 10). 

Table 1.3 provides rate constants for the decay of selected carbocations and oxocar-bocations in H2O, TFE, and HFIP. As a general comment, water, methanol, and ethanol are highly reactive solvents where many carbocations that are written as free cations in standard textbooks have very short lifetimes. The diphenylmethyl cation, with two conjugating phenyl groups, has a lifetime in water of only 1 ns. Cations such as the benzyl cation, simple tertiary alkyl cations such as tert-butyl, and oxocarbocations derived from aldehydes and simple glycosides, if they exist at all, have aqueous lifetimes in the picosecond range, and do not form and react in water as free ions. This topic is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 in this volume. 

However, the directing influence of silicon can be overcome if the vinylsilane contains another substituent that can stabilize a carbocation more strongly than silicon. For example, when the silyl group is attached to C-2 of a terminal alkene, reaction occurs to give the more substituted carbocation 82 (equation 44)107. Similarly, if the silicon is bound to the same carbon atom as a phenyl group, reaction occurs via the benzyl cation to give the product shown in equation 45108. 

The protonation of silyl-substituted styrenes is regioselective and leads to secondary benzyl cations with a /1-silyl substituent (equation 49). The isomeric carbocation 332 is not formed. 

Diffusion-controlled trapping of carbocations benzylic cations... 

These values have been discussed in some detail to indicate that care is required to take account of the differences in solvents for measurements. They illustrate, nevertheless that a good framework of stabilities of benzyl-related carbocations exists. Other (oxygen-substituted) benzylic cations for which pAR measurements have been reported are discussed below (p. 57-63). 

Effects of oxygen substitutents in an aromatic ring upon an exocyclic rather than endocyclic carbocation charge center have also been measured. The possibility of comparing HO, MeO, and O substituent effects for the benzylic cations is provided by recent studies of quinone methides, including the unsubstituted / -quinone methide 23, which may be considered as a resonance-stabilized benzylic cation with a /xoxyanion substituent. 

It is not intended to extend this discussion of reactions of carbocations with water to consideration of the alcoholic solvents trifluoroethanol (TFE) and hexa-fluoroisopropanol (HFIP), which have been extensively studied and reviewed by McClelland and Steenken.3 However, an important point of interest of these solvents is that their reactivities toward carbocations are greatly reduced compared with water (by up to a factor of 104 in TFE and 108 in HFIP) and that differences in rate constants can be observed between cations which would react indiscriminately at the solvent relaxation limit in water. The following comparisons of rate constants for carbocations with similar pAR values reacting with hexafluoroiso-propanol241,242 reinforces the conclusion that structural variations in the cation lead to changes in intrinsic barrier and, for example, that phenyl substitution is probably associated with such an increase in going from benzyl to benzhydryl (although the benzyl cation itself is not shown). 

A further dependence of the selectivity between different nucleophiles on the stability and reactivity of carbocations was found by Richard and Amyes in a study of reactions of alcohols and carboxylate anions with -substituted a-trifluoromethyl benzyl cations (75, X = Me, OMe, SMe, N(Me)CH2CF3, and NMe2) monitored using the azide clock.305 Apart from the methyl-substituted substrate, for which the reactions approached diffusion control,... 

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