Effective Charge from Hammett Slopes

In some cases, the effect of reactant structure may outweigh the influence of catalyst nature. This is seen by comparison with the dehydration of aliphatic secondary alcohols and substituted 2-phenylethanols on four different oxide catalysts (Table 4). With aliphatic alcohols, the slope of the Taft correlation depended on the nature of the catalyst (A1203 + NaOH 1.2, Zr02 0.3, Ti02—0.8, Si02—2.8 [55]) whereas for 2-phenyl-ethanols, the slope of the corresponding Hammett correlation had practically the same value (from —2.1 to —2.4) for all catalysts of this series [95]. The resonance stabilisation of an intermediate with a positive charge on Ca clearly predominates over other influences. 

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