Dissociation constant aniline derivative

According to the Brpnsted definition, the acidity of a molecule is associated with its capacity to give up a proton Ph—NH2 — Ph—NH +H+. The change of standard enthalpy or free energy of this deprotonation reaction is a measure of the intrinsic acidity. As discussed above, in solution, the propensity of an aniline derivative is to accept a proton. The measured dissociation constant (pATa) is related to the basicity of the neutral molecule (or the acidity of the anilinium cations). As a consequence, relatively little is known about their acidity and/or the anilinide anions. However, the NH acidities have been well established in hydroxamic acids even though the latter usually behave as O-acids134. It is therefore of interest to get some insight into the deprotonation of aniline in the gas phase. 

Aliphatic amines generally have base dissociation constants on the order of 10 and can thus be titrated directly with a solution of a strong acid. In contrast, aromatic amines such as aniline and its derivatives are usually too weak for titration in aqueous medium ( Ib 10 °). The same is true for cyclic amines with aromatic character, such as pyridine and its derivatives. Many saturated cyclic amines, such as piperidine, tend to resemble aliphatic amines in their acid/base behavior and thus can be titrated in aqueous media. 

A simple case where the general a constants in Table 8.5 do not succeed in correlating acidity constants is when the acid or base function is in direct resonance with the substituent. This may occur in cases such as substituted phenols, anilines, and pyridines. For example, owing to resonance (see Fig. 8.4), a para nitro group decreases the pKa of phenol much more than would be predicted from the o para constant obtained from the dissociation of p-nitrobenzoic acid. In such resonance cases (another example would be the anilines), a special set of o values (denoted as oJpara) has been derived (Table 8.5) to try to account for both inductive and resonance... 

We have stated earlier that because of proximity effects, no generally applicable aj values may be derived for ortho substitution. Nevertheless, one can determine a set of apparent 0)ortho values for a specific type of reaction, as for example, for the dissociation of substituted phenols. Table 8.7 gives such apparent O)ortho constants for estimating pKa values of substituted phenols and anilines. Of course, in cases of multiple substitution, substituents may interact with one another, thereby resulting in larger deviations of experimental from predicted pKa values. Some example calculations using the Hammett equation are given in Illustrative Example 8.2. 

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