Deactivating groups, aromatic substitution

Deactivating substituent (Sections 12 11 and 12 13) A group that when present in place of hydrogen causes a particular reaction to occur more slowly The term is most often ap plied to the effect of substituents on the rate of electrophilic aromatic substitution... 

The pKa of p-(tiifluoromethyl)benzoic acid is 3.6. Is the trifluoromethyl substituent an activating or deactivating group in electrophilic aromatic substitution ... 

The way in which various substituents affect the polarization of a carbonyl group is similar to the way they affect the reactivity of an aromatic ring toward electrophilic substitution (Section 16.5). A chlorine substituent, for example, inductively withdraws electrons from an acyl group in the same way that it withdraws elections from and thus deactivates an aromatic ring. Similarly, amino, methoxvl, and methylthio substituents donate electrons to acyl groups by resonance in the same way that they donate electrons to and thus activate aromatic rings. 

Deactivating group (Section 16.4) An electron-withdrawing substituent that decreases the reactivity of an aromatic ring toward electrophilic aromatic substitution. 

In the discussion of electrophilic aromatic substitution (Chapter 11) equal attention was paid to the effect of substrate structure on reactivity (activation or deactivation) and on orientation. The question of orientation was important because in a typical substitution there are four or five hydrogens that could serve as leaving groups. This type of question is much less important for aromatic nucleophilic substitution, since in most cases there is only one potential leaving group in a molecule. Therefore attention is largely focused on the reactivity of one molecule compared with another and not on the comparison of the reactivity of different positions within the same molecule. 

Such a representation is referred to as a local ionization potential map. Local ionization potential maps provide an alternative to electrostatic potential maps for revealing sites which may be particularly susceptible to electrophilic attack. For example, local ionization potential maps show both the positional selectivity in electrophilic aromatic substitution (NH2 directs ortho para, and NO2 directs meta), and the fact that TC-donor groups (NH2) activate benzene while electron-withdrawing groups (NO2) deactivate benzene. 

During aromatic substitution with ArCOOH or ArCOG, the electron-attracting —COOH or —COG group is mcM-directing and deactivating. 

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