Different leaving group elimination reactions

For E2 eliminations in 2-phenylethyl systems with several different leaving groups, both the primary isotope effect and Hammett p values for the reactions are known. Deduce from these data the relationship between the location on the E2 transition state spectrum and the nature of the leaving group i.e., deduce which system has the most El-like transition state and which has the most Elcb-like. Explain your reasoning. 

These reactions are probably similar in character to sul-phonate eliminations, although recent studies of aliphatic compounds [136] show that kinetic differences may arise due to different degrees of bond stretching for different leaving-groups in the respective transition states. One such reaction has already been mentioned (p, 105). An early report that 3/S Chloro-5jd-choiestane (21) is dehydrochlorinated by boiling quinoline to give only the A -olefin (23) is now known to be... 

It is clear that a variety of substrates with different leaving groups can be converted to alkenes via elimination. -Elimination of sulfones is also known.A general transform for the important E2 reaction is... 

The mechanism for an aldol condensation has two parts (Mechanism 22.6). The first part is just an aldol addition reaction, which has three mechanistic steps. The second part has two steps that accomplish the elimination of water. Normally, alcohols do not undergo dehydration in the presence of a strong base, but here, the presence of the carbonyl group enables the dehydration reaction to occur. The a position is first deprotonated to form an enolate ion, followed by expulsion of a hydroxide ion to produce a,p unsaturation. This two-step process, which is different from the elimination reactions we saw in Chapter 8, is called an Elcb mechanism. In an Elcb mechanism, the leaving group only leaves after deprotonation occurs. 

As a general rule, nucleophilic addition reactions are characteristic only of aldehydes and ketones, not of carboxylic acid derivatives. The reason for the difference is structural. As discussed previously in A Preview of Carbonyl Compounds and shown in Figure 19.14, the tetrahedral intermediate produced by addition of a nucleophile to a carboxylic acid derivative can eliminate a leaving group, leading to a net nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction. The tetrahedral intermediate... 

The net effect of the addition/elimination sequence is a substitution of the nucleophile for the -Y group originally bonded to the acyl carbon. Thus, the overall reaction is superficially similar to the kind of nucleophilic substitution that occurs during an Sn2 reaction (Section 11.3), but the mechanisms of the two reactions are completely different. An SN2 reaction occurs in a single step by backside displacement of the Leaving group a nucleophilic acyl substitution takes place in two steps and involves a tetrahedral intermediate. 

Anti stereochemistry (Section 7.2) The opposite of syn. An anti addition reaction is one in which the two ends of the double bond are attacked from different sides. An anti elimination reaction is one in which the two groups leave from opposite sides of the molecule. 

In the previous chapter, we saw that a substitution reaction can occur when a compound possesses a leaving group. In this chapter, we will explore another type of reaction, called elimination, which can also occur for compounds with leaving groups. In fact, substitution and elimination reactions frequently compete with each other, giving a mixture of products. At the end of this chapter, we will learn how to predict the products of these competing reactions. For now, let s consider the different outcomes for substitution and elimination reactions ... 

If we want to perform a substitution reaction with an alcohol, we have the same issue that we had when we explored elimination reactions a few moments ago—the OH group is not a good leaving group. So, we must convert the OH into a better leaving group. There are several ways to do that for substitution reactions. We will look at four different ways ... 

If the reaction is performed on two molecules that differ only in the leaving group (for example, /-BuCl and /-BuSMe ), the rates should obviously be different, since they depend on the ionizing ability of the molecule. However, once the carbocation is formed, if the solvent and the temperature are the same, it should suffer the same fate in both cases, since the nature of the leaving group does not affect the second step. This means that the ratio of elimination to substitution should be the same. The compounds mentioned in the example were solvolyzed at 65.3°C in 80% aqueous ethanol with the following results 11... 

Additional Reaction Mechanisms. So far we have confined our discussion to the most common case of ester hydrolysis, that is, the case in which the reaction takes place at the carbonyl carbon. In some cases, however, an ester may also react in water by an SN-type or E-type mechanism (see Section 13.2) with the acid moiety (i.e., "OOC - R,) being the leaving group. The S -type reactions occur primarily with esters exhibiting a tertiary alcohol group. The products of this reaction are the same as the products of the common hydrolysis reaction. In the case of elimination, however, products are different since the ester is converted to the olefin and the corresponding conjugate base of the acid ... 

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