Carboxylic acids acidity, substituent effects

The effect of structure on acidity was introduced m Section 1 15 where we developed the generalization that electronegative substituents near an lomzable hydrogen increase Its acidity Substituent effects on the acidity of carboxylic acids have been extensively studied... 

The allylboration of a-oxocarboxylic acids, a-amino ketones and a- and //-hydroxy aldehydes and ketones has also been examined [119]. A representative example of the reaction of an a-oxocarboxylic acid with E- or Z-2-butenylboronates is shown in Scheme 10-72. Clearly, the carboxylic acid -substituents exert a significant effect on the regio- and diastereoselectivity of these reactions. The reactions are proposed to occur via the bicyclic transition structure shown. The reac-... 

The p/Q value for butanoic acid is entirely typical of a carboxylic acid. The effect of the chloro substituent is to withdraw electron density inductively, and its influence in stabilizing the carbox-ylate anion is greatest when it is closest to the site of the anion. The effect of the 2-oxo substituent indicates that this is a stronger electron withdrawer than -CHCIR. 

Table 19 3 lists the ionization constants of some substituted benzoic acids The largest effects are observed when strongly electron withdrawing substituents are ortho to the carboxyl group An o nitro substituent for example increases the acidity of benzoic acid 100 fold Substituent effects are small at positions meta and para to the carboxyl group In those cases the values are clustered m the range 3 5-4 5... 

Carboxylic acids are weak acids and m the absence of electron attracting substituents have s of approximately 5 Carboxylic acids are much stronger acids than alcohols because of the electron withdrawing power of the carbonyl group (inductive effect) and its ability to delocalize negative charge m the carboxylate anion (resonance effect)... 

The negatively charged oxygen substituent is a powerful electron donor to the carbonyl group Resonance m carboxylate anions is more effective than resonance m carboxylic acids acyl chlorides anhydrides thioesters esters and amides... 

Potassium t-butoxide in t-butyl alcohol requires powerful electron-attracting substituents at C-4 to effect ring opening of pyrazoles but sodamide does not (Scheme 26) (B-76MI40402). As the key to the transformation is the generation of the anion, similar results were obtained by heating some pyrazole-3-carboxylic acids with quinoline. 

Both 1,2- and 2,1-benzisothiazoles react with electrophiles to give 5- and 7-substituted products (see Section 4.02.3.2). The isothiazole ring has little effect on the normal characteristics of the benzene ring. C-Linked substituents react almost wholly normally, the isothiazole ring having little effect except that phenyl substituents are deactivated (see Section 4.17.2.1). There are, however, considerable differences in the ease of decarboxylation of the carboxylic acids, the 4-isomer being the most stable (see Section 4.02.3.3). 

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. 

Correlations with o in carboxylic acid derivative reactions have been most successful for variations in the acyl portion, R in RCOX. Variation in the alkyl portion of esters, R in RCOOR, has not led to many good correlations, although use of relative rates of alkaline and acidic reactions, as in the defining relation, can generate linear correlations. The failure to achieve satisfactory correlations with cr for such substrates may be a consequence of the different steric effects of substituents in the acyl and alkyl locations. It has been shown that solvolysis rates of some acetates are related to the pA", of the leaving group, that is, of the parent alcohol. The pK of alcohols has been correlated with but this relationship... 

The least squares value for the p constant obtained by this procedure is +6.2 it wiU be obviously subject to change as more meta and epi substituents become available. Only the cata-NO group was excluded from the above plot because it causes a strongly enhanced resonance effect in nucleophilic substitution (Section IV,C, l,a) and an anomalous effect of uncertain origin in the dissociation of carboxylic acids. It can be assumed that the reaction constant for 4-chloro-... 

Other substituted systems, however, might be planar due to conjugation effects with acceptor substituents, as has been found in an X-ray structural analysis of 1,4-dioxocin-6-carboxylic acid chloride the eight-membered ring is practically planar with a coplanar arrangement of the substituent.9... 

As suggested by Roberts and Moreland many years ago (1953), the acidity constants of 4-substituted bicyclooctane-l-carboxylic acids provide a very suitable system for defining a field/induction parameter. In this rigid system the substituent X is held firmly in place and there is little possibility for mesomeric delocalization or polarization interactions between X and COOH (or COO-). Therefore, it can be assumed that X influences the deprotonation of COOH only through space (the field effect) and through intervening o-bonds. On this basis Taft (1956, p. 595) and Swain and Lupton (1968) were able to calculate values for o and crR. 

The reaction is less selective than the related benzoylation reaction (/pMe = 30.2, cf. 626), thereby indicating a greater charge on the electrophile this is in complete agreement with the greater ease of nuclophilic substitution of sulphonic acids and derivatives compared to carboxylic acids and derivatives and may be rationalized from a consideration of resonance structures. The effect of substituents on the reactivity of the sulphonyl chloride follows from the effect of stabilizing the aryl-sulphonium ion formed in the ionisation step (81) or from the effect on the preequilibrium step (79). 

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