Carbonium perchlorates

Gomberg in one of his papers on triphenylmethyl (Gomberg and Cone [38]) described carbonium perchlorates, e.g. triphenylcarbonium perchlorate... 

C19H15CI13Te3, Triphenylmethyl tridecachloro-tri-tellurium, 45B, 57 Cl9H18CIN3O4, Tri-(p-aminophenyl)carbonium perchlorate, 37B, 45 C20H17N4, 3,4-Dihydro-2,4,6-triphenyl-s-tetrazin-1(2H)-yl free radical, 34B, 56... 

The protonated azirine system has also been utilized for the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds (67JA44S6). Thus, treatment of (199) with anhydrous perchloric acid and acetone or acetonitrile gave the oxazolinium perchlorate (207) and the imidazolinium perchlorate (209), respectively. The mechanism of these reactions involves 1,3-bond cleavage of the protonated azirine and reaction with the carbonyl group (or nitrile) to produce a resonance-stabilized carbonium-oxonium ion (or carbonium-nitrilium ion), followed by attack of the nitrogen unshared pair jf electrons to complete the cyclization. 

It will be observed that most syntheses yield pyrylium salts in which positions 2,4, and 6 are substituted. Since according to formulas Ib-lc these positions have a partial positive charge, it can readily be understood why electron-donating substituents (hydroxy, alkoxy, alkyl, or aryl) in these positions stabilize the pyrylium salts. Only three pyrylium salts which do not have substituents in either a-position have been reported and few unsubstituted in y or in one a-position they are less stable toward hydrolysis, and in the case of perchlorates they explode more easily, than 2,4,6-trisubstituted compounds. In fact, the former are secondary, the latter tertiary carbonium ions. This fact also explains why the parent compound (1) was prepared only in 1953. 

It is known that tropylium may be prepared from tropylidene via hydride abstraction by PhgC or MegC carbonium ions therefore, it is very likely that here too the dehydrogenation is a hydride transfer from the 1,5-dione to an acceptor. A similar dehydrogenation of chromanones to chromones, with triphenylmethyl perchlorate was reported. A study of the electrooxidation of 1,5-diones on a rotating platinum electrode showed that 1,5-diaryl-substituted diones afford pyrylium salts in these conditions and that the half-wave potentials correlate with yields in chemical dehydrogenations. 

From the above discussion it follows that the probability of carbonium ion formation during decomposition of RTIX2 compounds by a Type 5 process is low when X is carboxylate, but significantly higher when X is nitrate, sulfate, perchlorate, or fluoroborate. The important role played by the anion of the metal salt in oxymetallation has in fact been recognized only very recently for both oxymercuration 11, 12) and oxythallation (92). The... 

For a given carbonium ion the order of degree of ionization appears to be hydroxide, alkoxides, and carboxylates < cyanide < thiocyanate < ferrocyanide < azide < chloride < bromide < sulfate and perchlorate. 

Not only water and alcohols, but also other oxygen compounds, are able to react covalently with acylium ions. In the case of hydroxy compounds the product is stabilized by loss of the proton from the hydroxyl group, but certain ethers give an analogous reaction in which the product is stabilized by loss of a carbonium ion.288 Using acetyl chloride with silver perchlorate in nitromethane as the source of acetyl... 

Since the determination of absolute rate constants is one of the most urgent problems in cationic polymerization, and the styrene-perchloric acid system seemed to be so clean and simple, Gandini and Plesch set out first to check Pepper and Reilly s results by determining spectroscopically the concentration of carbonium ions during polymerization, and they intended then to extend the method to other monomers. However, their findings were not as expected. A comparison of spectroscopic and conductivity measurements with rate measurements in an adiabatic calorimeter showed [4] that in methylene dichloride solution ... 

The degree of dissociation is a = pic = 1 - qlc. We now consider the three special cases shown in Table 3. In order to ascertain which, if any, of the two approximations may be valid, we need to examine the magnitudes of K, Ky and c which are relevant to the systems under discussion. To determine a value of K which will be relevant to polymerizing systems, we need the dissociation constant of a carbonium salt with a large anion, in a solvent of e about 10, at 25 °C. The only relevant information is Longworth and Mason s value of K for triphenylmethyl perchlorate in ethylene dichloride [53], and values of K for two quaternary ammonium perchlorates [140] (see Table 4). 

These results indicate that in the polymerisation of styrene by perchloric acid the propagating species is not a carbonium ion (either free or paired), but a complex between acid and monomer. Our results indicate that this has the composition HC104, 4C8H8 and that it participates in the equilibrium... 

We have shown [1, 2] that, in the polymerisation of styrene by perchloric acid under the conditions reported here, the initiation reaction does not produce carbonium ions and that the monomer is polymerised by non-ionic chain carriers. Since the most likely nonionic reaction product formed from perchloric acid and styrene is the ester 1-phenylethyl perchlorate we attempted its preparation in order to try it as catalyst for the polymerisation of styrene. However, we found this ester to be unstable in methylene dichloride solution. It forms styrene oligomers, polystyryl ions, and perchloric acid, and the preparative technique and the mechanism of the reactions involved will be discussed in a paper dealing with the spectroscopic behaviour of polymerising and polymerised systems. 

This mechanism applies equally well, as we have shown [2], to the system styrene perchloric acid-1,2-dichloroethane, studied by Pepper and Reilly [3] and therefore replaces their interpretation based on carbonium ions. 

Pepper and Reilly s views on the mechanism of this polymerisation implied that with the concentrations of perchloric acid used by them, it should be possible to estimate the concentration of polystyryl ions spectrophotometrically and so to test whether initiation did indeed give carbonium ions in concentration equal to that of the acid. When Gandini and Plesch [5, 29-31] carried out the appropriate measurements, they found from spectroscopic, conductimetric and kinetic studies that no ions were present during the polymerisations, but that they were formed once the styrene concentration had been reduced by polymerisation to less than four times the concentration of acid. Addition of more styrene instantly removed the ions, which reappeared once again when polymerisation had reduced the styrene concentration sufficiently. This formation of ions after polymerisation had misled some workers into concluding that they were also present during that reaction. 

Figure 3 illustrates a conductivity experiment with four successive additions of styrene whenever more styrene was added, the equivalent conductance (referred to the total perchloric acid concentration) fell abruptly, but not quite down to its original value during the first latency period. This is not because some carbonium ions remained after the styrene addition, but because the free acid present after the end of the polymerisation reacted with the tungsten leads, as mentioned above. This was confirmed by a blank experiment without styrene which gave the dotted base-line in Figure 3. 

Our studies have confirmed that the oligomerisation of styrene by perchloric acid is both chemically and kinetically simple. However, the reactions which follow completion of the polymerisation, and during which carbonium ions are formed and destroyed, are complicated. They can be rationalised in terms of equilibria involving ions, acid, double bonds, and esters cyclisation of olefinic oligomers and formation of polyenes by way of allylic ions add further complications. We have thus shown in some detail just why such systems must be treated with the greatest circumspection if they are to yield valid information. 

The formation from neutral substances (triphenylcarbinol) of coloured, salt-like reaction products which are more or less easily decomposed by water is a phenomenon called halochromism . The halo-chromic salts of triphenylcarbinol are regarded as carbonium salts this follows at once from the above discussion. A quinonoid formula, by which various authors explain the colour, seems less probable. Recently the attempt has been made to attribute complex formulae to the carbonium salts (Hantzsch), in accordance with Werner s scheme for ammonium salts. Such formulae express the fact that, in the ion, the charge is not localised at the methane carbon atom, but spread over the field of force of the whole radicle. The simplest carbonium salt of the group, the yellow perchlorate (K. A. Hofmann), would accordingly have the following structural formula ... 

The first successful polymerizations were obtained in solution, with cationic initiators, under conditions typical of ring-opening polymerization. Bredereck and Hutten polymerized the perbenzyl ether and peracetate of levoglucosan, using, as initiators, various carbonium ions formed in situ from organic halides and silver perchlorates. The products were apparently not stereoregular, but were definitely poly-... 

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