Diphenylmethane, acidity

The first three of a series of papers by Ridd and co-workers on Inductive and Field effects in Aromatic Substitution have appeared. Results of studies of the nitration of 4-phenylp5nidine and of 4-benzylpyridine in aqueous sulphuric acid were reported and use of the usual criteria (para 8.2) showed that in each case the conjugate acid was the species undergoing nitration. The values of where fm refers to the corresponding homocyclic compound (biphenyl or diphenylmethane) when plotted against r, the distance between the... 

Diphenylmethane is significantly more acidic than benzene and tnphenylmethane is more acidic than either Identify the most acidic proton in each compound and suggest a reason for the trend in acidity... 

Pyronines. Pyronines are diphenylmethane derivatives synthesized by the condensation of y -dialkylarninophenols with formaldehyde, followed by oxidation of tiie xantiiene detivative (12) to the coiiesponding xanthydiol (13) which in the presence of acid forms the dye (14). If R is methyl, the dye produced is... 

Diphenylmethane Base Method. In this method, the central carbon atom is derived from formaldehyde, which condenses with two moles of an arylamine to give a substituted diphenylmethane derivative. The methane base is oxidized with lead dioxide or manganese dioxide to the benzhydrol derivative. The reactive hydrols condense fairly easily with arylamines, sulfonated arylamines, and sulfonated naphthalenes. The resulting leuco base is oxidized in the presence of acid (Fig. 4). 

In a variation of this method, isolation of the ben2hydrol derivative is not required. The methane base undergoes oxidative condensation in the presence of acid with the same or a different arylamine direcdy to the dye. New fuchsine [3248-91 -7] Cl Basic Violet 2 (16), is prepared by condensation of two moles of o-toluidine with formaldehyde in nitrobenzene in the presence of iron salts to give the corresponding substituted diphenylmethane base. This base is also not isolated, but undergoes an oxidative condensation with another mole of o-toluidine to produce the dye. 

Diphenylmethane has been prepared with aluminum chloride as a catalyst from methylene chloride and benzene, from chloroform and benzene as a by-product in the preparation of triphenylmethane, and from benzyl chloride and benzene. It has been prepared by the reduction of benzophenone with hydriodic acid and phosphorus, or with sodium and alcohol. It has also been made by heating a solution of benzyl chloride in benzene with zinc dust, or with zinc chloride. The above method is only a slight modification of the original method of Hirst and Cohen. ... 

When the aldehyde is heated on the water-bath with 25 per cent, hydrochloric acid, it yields a triphenylmethane derivative, nonamethoxy-triphenylmethane, a body consisting of snow-white crystals, melting at 184 5°. The action of concentrated nitric acid upon the solution in glacial acetic acid of this triphenylmethane derivative gives rise to 1, 2, 5-trimethoxy-4-nitrobenzene (melting at 130°). With bromine, nonamethoxytriphenylmethane combines, with separation of a molecule of trimethoxy bromobenzene, into a tribromo additive compound of hexamethoxy diphenylmethane, a deep violet-blue body. The 1, 2, 5-tri-methoxy-4-bromobenzene (melting at 54 5°) may be obtained more readily from asaronic acid. 

How would you prepare diphenylmethane, (Ph)2CH2, from benzene and an acid chloride ... 

With 77 % aqueous acetic acid, the rates were found to be more affected by added perchloric acid than by sodium perchlorate (but only at higher concentrations than those used by Stanley and Shorter207, which accounts for the failure of these workers to observe acid catalysis, but their observation of kinetic orders in hypochlorous acid of less than one remains unaccounted for). The difference in the effect of the added electrolyte increased with concentration, and the rates of the acid-catalysed reaction reached a maximum in ca. 50 % aqueous acetic acid, passed through a minimum at ca. 90 % aqueous acetic acid and rose very rapidly thereafter. The faster chlorination in 50% acid than in water was, therefore, considered consistent with chlorination by AcOHCl+, which is subject to an increasing solvent effect in the direction of less aqueous media (hence the minimum in 90 % acid), and a third factor operates, viz. that in pure acetic acid the bulk source of chlorine ischlorineacetate rather than HOC1 and causes the rapid rise in rate towards the anhydrous medium. The relative rates of the acid-catalysed (acidity > 0.49 M) chlorination of some aromatics in 76 % aqueous acetic acid at 25 °C were found to be toluene, 69 benzene, 1 chlorobenzene, 0.097 benzoic acid, 0.004. Some of these kinetic observations were confirmed in a study of the chlorination of diphenylmethane in the presence of 0.030 M perchloric acid, second-order rate coefficients were obtained at 25 °C as follows209 0.161 (98 vol. % aqueous acetic acid) ca. 0.078 (75 vol. % acid), and, in the latter solvent in the presence of 0.50 M perchloric acid, diphenylmethane was approximately 30 times more reactive than benzene. 

The rates of chlorination of benzene, biphenyl, and diphenylmethane by chlorine acetate in 98 % aqueous acetic acid at 25 °C have also been determined and the second-order rate coefficients are 0.00118, 0.0364, and 0.0311, respective-]y209 , 270 jjje varjation in rate with change in water content of the acetic acid was the same as that previously observed209 for toluene, and thus in ca. 75 % aqueous acid the coefficients were 0.00073, 0.027 and 0.0241 however, elsewhere in ref. 209a a 4-fold decrease in rate coefficient for diphenylmethane was claimed to accompany the same increase in water content of the medium. 

Very recently equilibrium ion-pair acidities of substituted diphenylmethanes have been measured in cyclohexylamine188. The meta series gives a normal Hammett plot (p = 9.69)... 

Closely related to this work is that of Wiberg and Evans on the Cr(Vf) oxidation of diphenylmethane in 95 % acetic acid. This has the rate law... 

A quantity of earlier work exists on chromic acid oxidation of hydrocarbons. It was noted that diphenylmethane and other hydrocarbons in glacial acetic acid solution are oxidised rapidly during the initial stages but that reaction is auto-retarded The autoretardation is eliminated on adding 2.5 % of sulphuric acid. The orders of the reaction with respect to diphenylmethane and Cr(VI) are one and two respectively , the latter differing from that found by Wiberg and... 

Stairs comments that this p value is strongly dependent on the temperature but his data have been criticised by Duffin and Tucker ", who prefer their method of observing the rate of formation of the adduct to that of estimating total residual oxidising power employed by Stairs, and they find p (25°) to be —2.32+0.10 as compared to a value of —2.20+0.07 at 40 °C. These values are considerably more negative than those found for chromic acid oxidation of diphenylmethanes (— 1.17) and toluenes (-1.12). 

The relative rates of oxidation of phenylmethanes cover too small a range to be compatible with carbonium ion formation cf. the discussion on chromic acid oxidation of diphenylmethane, p. 295), and an initial reaction to give a radical plus Cr(V) followed by rapid transfer of a second electron to form Cr(IV) is more... 

The apparatus required is similar to that described for Diphenylmethane (Section IV,4). Place a mixture of 200 g. (230 ml.) of dry benzene and 40 g. (26 ml.) of dry chloroform (1) in the flask, and add 35 g. of anhydrous aluminium chloride in portions of about 6 g. at intervals of 5 minutes with constant shaking. The reaction sets in upon the addition of the aluminium chloride and the liquid boils with the evolution of hydrogen chloride. Complete the reaction by refluxing for 30 minutes on a water bath. When cold, pour the contents of the flask very cautiously on to 250 g. of crushed ice and 10 ml. of concentrated hydrochloric acid. Separate the upper benzene layer, dry it with anhydrous calcium chloride or magnesium sulphate, and remove the benzene in a 100 ml. Claisen flask (see Fig. II, 13, 4) at atmospheric pressure. Distil the remaining oil imder reduced pressure use the apparatus shown in Fig. II, 19, 1, and collect the fraction b.p. 190-215°/10 mm. separately. This is crude triphenylmethane and solidifles on cooling. Recrystallise it from about four times its weight of ethyl alcohol (2) the triphenylmethane separates in needles and melts at 92°. The yield is 30 g. 

The practical route for oxidizing leuco diphenylmethanes 15 demands inital conversion to an imine salt 16. The imine salt is obtained by heating a mixture of diphenylmethane, sulfur, ammonium chloride, and sodium chloride at 175°C in a current of ammonia or by heating a mixture of diphenylmethane, urea, sulfamic acid, sulfur, and ammonia at 175°C (Scheme 3). Dyes 16 can be represented as the quinonoid resonance structure 17. Dyes of this class, known as auramines, are all yellow, with the only commercial representative being auramine O 16a. Due to its poor lightfastness and instability to hot acids and bases, its use has been restricted to dyeing and printing cotton, paper, silk, leather, and jute. 

Diphenylmethanes that have two identical phenyl groups are synthesized by the condensation of formaldehyde or its equivalent with an arylamine in the presence of concentrated hydrochloric acid.47-51 However, it is usually difficult to stop the reaction at the diphenylmethane stage. 

Reaction of 4-hydroxymethylaniline 37 with a variety of arylamines in the presence of an acid catalyst gives both symmetrical and unsymmetrical diphenylmethanes.53-55 This reaction proceeds via intermediate 38. 

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