Carboxylic acids relative reactivity

What structural features are responsible for the reactivity order of carboxylic acid derivatives Like the other carbonyl containing compounds that we ve studied they all have a planar arrangement of bonds to the carbonyl group Thus all are about the same in offering relatively unhindered access to the approach of a nucleophile They differ m the degree to which the atom attached to the carbonyl group can stabilize the carbonyl group by electron donation... 

Process Applications The production of esters from alcohols and carboxylic acids illustrates many of the principles of reactive distillation as applied to equilibrium-limited systems. The equilibrium constants for esterification reactions are usually relatively close to unity. Large excesses of alcohols must be used to obtain acceptable yields with large recycles. In a reactive-distiUation scheme, the reac-... 

Similarly, carboxylic acid and ester groups tend to direct chlorination to the / and v positions, because attack at the a position is electronically disfavored. The polar effect is attributed to the fact that the chlorine atom is an electrophilic species, and the relatively electron-poor carbon atom adjacent to an electron-withdrawing group is avoided. The effect of an electron-withdrawing substituent is to decrease the electron density at the potential radical site. Because the chlorine atom is highly reactive, the reaction would be expected to have a very early transition state, and this electrostatic effect predominates over the stabilizing substituent effect on the intermediate. The substituent effect dominates the kinetic selectivity of the reaction, and the relative stability of the radical intermediate has relatively little influence. 

Aliphatic carboxylic acids react with sulfur tetrafluonde to give, in addition to 1,1,1-trifluoromethylalkanes, considerable amounts of symmetrical bis(l,l-di-fluoroalkyl)ethers. Yields of the ethers are related to the nature of the acids and to the reaction conditions. The optimum conditions for the formation of the ethers depend on their stability in highly acidic reaction medium and on the reactivity of the acids toward sulfur tetrafluonde Simple unsubstituted acids form the ethers only at low temperatures, whereas longer chain and cycloaliphatic acids give the corresponding ethers at somewhat higher temperatures Halosubstituted acids form the ethers at the relatively high reaction temperatures necessary for these reactions to proceed [203, 204, 205] (equation 101). 

In the oxidation of p-xylene the first methyl group undergoes rapid autoxidation to afford p-toluic acid (Fig. 8). The second methyl group is, however, deactivated by the electron-withdrawing carboxyl group, and further oxidation of p-toluic to terephthalic acid is much slower, i.e. the relative reactivities of toluene and p-toluic acid are 26 1 (Fig. 8). It is not surprising, therefore, that the autoxidation of p-xylene to terephthalic acid proved to be a difficult proposition. 

Diborane also has a useful pattern of selectivity. It reduces carboxylic acids to primary alcohols under mild conditions that leave esters unchanged.77 Nitro and cyano groups are relatively unreactive toward diborane. The rapid reaction between carboxylic acids and diborane is the result of formation of a triacyloxyborane intermediate by protonolysis of the B-H bonds. The resulting compound is essentially a mixed anhydride of the carboxylic acid and boric acid in which the carbonyl groups have enhanced reactivity toward borane or acetoxyborane. 

AyV -Carbonyl-2,2 -biimidazole (A V7-carbonyl-2,2 -biimidazyl) prepared from 2,2 -biimidazole and phosgene is relatively unreactive on hydrolysis, and shows reduced reactivity in reactions with carboxylic acids.[19],[2]... 

In HO -catalyzed hydrolysis (specific base catalyzed hydrolysis), the tetrahedral intermediate is formed by the addition of a nucleophilic HO ion (Fig. 3.1, Pathway b). This reaction is irreversible for both esters and amides, since the carboxylate ion formed is deprotonated in basic solution and, hence, is not receptive to attack by the nucleophilic alcohol, phenol, or amine. The reactivity of the carboxylic acid derivative toward a particular nucleophile depends on a) the relative electron-donating or -withdrawing power of the substituents on the carbonyl group, and b) the relative ability of the -OR or -NR R" moiety to act as a leaving group. Thus, electronegative substituents accelerate hydrolysis, and esters are more readily hydrolyzed than amides. 

The Vcirious carboxylic acid derivatives vary in their reactivity (stability of the leaving group). Acid chlorides, for example, are more reactive than anhydrides (don t leave as easily). A summciry of the relative reactivities appears in Figure 12-32. 

Pyridine, pyrone and pyridone carboxylic acids undergo decarboxylation when heated, and the general order of reactivity is a > y > p. In pyridine, the carboxylic acids, as expected, exist mainly in the zwitterionic forms and decarboxylation of the a and y isomers under fairly mild conditions is a consequence of the relative stability of the ions of the type (48). 

Acy 1-4-amino-1,5-dihydro-2-pyrrolones (6) (type Z in Scheme 1) possess the features of cyclic enaminediones. The push-pull-7r system decreases the nucleophilicity of the amino group. Therefore N-acylation with carboxylic acid chlorides requires relatively drastic conditions (dioxane, 100°C, K2C03). In particular, the reaction of the highly reactive DMF-acetal 8 to formamidine 9 succeeds only while refluxing in benzene (87TH1). (See Fig. 3.)... 

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