Canonical forms resonance

Many of the quaternary salts discussed in this section and in Section V may be represented by two or more canonical forms. Such resonance, where it occurs, is obvious and therefore only one of the structures is given. 

The urea-type resonance is illustrated, as the neutral species, by 33. Resonance of this type does not operate in anionic species because one of the two possible canonical forms would have to carry the negative charge on the oxygen atom and the other on the nitrogen atom, and these forms would be unequivalent. The urea-type resonance is exemplified by the neutral species of 2-hydroxypteridine, which is strongly hydrated and has an anhydrous anion. 

There are three cases The original p orbital may have contained two, one, or no electrons. Since the original double bond contributes two electrons, the total number of electrons accommodated by the new orbitals is four, three, or two. A typical example of the first situation is vinyl chloride, CH2—CH—CI. Although the p orbital of the chlorine atom is filled, it still overlaps with the double bond. The four electrons occupy the two molecular orbitals of lowest energies. This is our first example of resonance involving overlap between unfilled orbitals and a filled orbital. Canonical forms for vinyl chloride are... 

The positions of the nuclei must be the same in all the structures. This means that when we draw the various canonical forms, all we are doing is putting in the electrons in different ways. For this reason, shorthand ways of representing resonance are easy to devise ... 

The resonance interaction of chlorine with the benzene ring can be represented as shown in 13 or 14, and both of these representations have been used in the literature to save space. However, we shall not use the curved-arrow method of 13 since arrows will be used in this book to express the actual movement of electrons in reactions. We will use representations like 14 or else write out the canonical forms. The convention used in dashed-line formulas like 14 is that bonds that are present in all canonical forms are drawn as solid lines, while bonds that are not present in all forms are drawn as dashed lines. In most resonance, a bonds are not involved, and only the n or unshared electrons are put in, in different ways. This means that if we write one canonical form for a molecule, we can then write the others by merely moving n and unshared electrons. 

All atoms taking part in the resonance, that is, covered by delocalized electrons, must lie in a plane or nearly so (see p. 42). This, of course, does not apply to atoms that have the same bonding in all the canonical forms. The reason for planarity is maximum overlap of the p orbitals. 

Simple resonance theory predicts that pentalene (48), azulene (49), and heptalene (50) should be aromatic, although no nonionic canonical form can have a double bond at the ring junction. Molecular orbital calculations show that azulene should be stable but not the other two, and this is borne out by experiment. Heptalene has been prepared but reacts readily with oxygen, acids, and bromine, is easily hydrogenated, and polymerizes on standing. Analysis of its NMR spectrum shows that it is... 

It is strong evidence for Hiickel s rule that 59 and 60 are not aromatic while the cyclopropenyl cation (55) and the cyclopentadienyl anion (39) are, since simple resonance theory predicts no difference between 59 and 55 or 60 and 39 (the same number of equivalent canonical forms can be drawn for 59 as for 55 and for 60 as for 39). 

Resonance effects are also important in aromatic amines. m-Nitroaniline is a weaker base than aniline, a fact that can be accounted for by the —7 effect of the nitro group. But p-nitroaniline is weaker still, though the —I effect should be less because of the greater distance. We can explain this result by taking into account the canonical form A. Because A contributes to the resonance hybrid, " the electron density of the unshared pair is lower in p-nitroaniline than in m-nitroaniline, where a canonical form such as Ais impossible. The basicity is lower in the para compound for two reasons, both... 

Since compounds with six electrons in the outer shell of an atom are usually not stable, the A—B—C system is actually one canonical form of a resonance hybrid, for which at least one other form can be drawn (see Table 15.3). 1,3-Dipolar compound can be divided into two main types ... 

Figure 3 shows 13c MAS spectra of acetone-2-13c on various materials. Two isotropic peaks at 231 and 227 ppm were observed for acetone on ZnCl2 powder, and appreciable chemical shift anisotropy was reflected in the sideband patterns at 193 K. The 231 ppm peak was in complete agreement with the shift observed for acetone diffused into ZnY zeolite. A much greater shift, 245 ppm, was observed on AICI3 powder. For comparison, acetone has chemical shifts of 205 ppm in CDCI3 solution, 244 ppm in concentrated H2SO4 and 249 ppm in superacid solutions. The resonance structures 5 for acetone on metal halide salts underscore the similarity of the acetone complex to carbenium ions. The relative contributions of the two canonical forms rationalizes the dependence of the observed isotropic 13c shift on the Lewis acidity of the metal halide. 

Resonance theory [15] contains essentially three assumptions beyond those of the valence bond method. Perhaps the most serious assumption is the contention that only unexcited canonical forms, non-polar valence bond structures or classical structures need be considered. Less serious, but no more than intuitive, is the proposition that the molecular geometry will take on that expected for the average of the classical structures. This is extended to the measurement of stability being greater the greater the number of classical structures. These concepts are still widely used in chemistry in very qualitative ways. 

Scheme 4) <02CC1816>. The reaction occurred selectively in the peripheral carbon-nitrogen bond, showing that this bond is more reactive than the other carbon-carbon double bonds. This can be understood by the resonance contributions to the overall structures. Figure 3 shows two such resonance structures. In the canonical form II the C=N is both cross conjugated and in an iminium form which is known to be electron-deficient and an active dienophile <02CC1816>.

Fig. 1. Canonical forms contributing to the resonance hybrid of simple sulfoxides, R,SO.

This behavior is interpreted by Graham and Hart-Davis as a resonance hybrid of two canonical forms ... 

The weak and highly polar Cl—F bond in FCIO can be rationalized in terms of either a (p—7T )a bond (see Section II, C) or a simple valence bond model (66) resulting in a resonance hybrid of the following canonical forms FCIO2 F + C102. It has been discussed in detail by Parent and Gerry (220), by Carter et al. (43), and in Section II, C of this review. 

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