Electrophilic reactions ethylene

Many other reactions of ethylene oxide are only of laboratory significance. These iaclude nucleophilic additions of amides, alkaU metal organic compounds, and pyridinyl alcohols (93), and electrophilic reactions with orthoformates, acetals, titanium tetrachloride, sulfenyl chlorides, halo-silanes, and dinitrogen tetroxide (94). 

Typical examples of electrophilic reactions are the reduction of NO by ethylene on Pt32 and the CO oxidation on Pt under fuel-rich conditions.51,62... 

Electrooxidation, ethylene, 30 254-255 Electrophiles, reactions with carbanions, 35 392-393... 

On the other hand, the Nation resin in its acidic form (Nafion-H) shows high activity in a variety of electrophilic reactions. Gas-phase alkylation of benzene with ethylene and propylene in a flow system proceeds at temperatures as low as 110°C over Nafion-H (Table 5.10). 

We have already mentioned that Dorfman and collaborators have developed a versatile technique to observe ort-lived carbenium ions in solution generated by dissociative pulse radiolysis. This novel approach to the characterisation of transient species has also allowed this schod to measure the rate constants of many electrophilic reactions between carbenium ions (the benzylium ion in particular) and various nucleophiles. In the first paper of the series Jones and Dorfman reported the rate constants of the benzylium ion reaction with methanol, ethanol, the bromide and the iodide ions in ethylene chloride at 24 C. Values of about 5 x 10 sec were obtained for the halide ions and of around 10 sec for the alcohols. Later studies confirmed that the reaction of halide ions vrith benzylium, diphenyl-methylium and triphenylmethylium ions is at the limit of diffusion control. Reaction rate constants of these three carbenium ions with amines and alcdiols were also reported in the same paper. More recently, these studies have been extended to include cyclopropylphenylmetiiylium ion as electrophile, ammonia as nucleophile and methylene chloride and trichloroethane as solvents These results are extremely... 

One of the major structural differences between bicyclobutane and an analogous olefin lies in the differing symmetries of the two systems. The former lacks the element which is typical of the latter. In other words, unlike ethylene, bicyclobutane has two unidentical faces above and below its central 7c-like bond. This necessarily leads to the question which of the two faces is more reactive Electrophilic reactions are a good vehicle for the analysis of this problem. As will be mentioned later, protonation of bicyclobutane can lead to products that may be regarded as resulting from attack on the central bond as well as on a side bond. Two theoretical studies were addressed to the interesting problem of the preferred direction for proton approach. 

However, the anodic reaction could be understood as a splitting of the S-S linkage, and the intermediate PhS" (sulfonium cation) was postulated as the electrophilic transient species (to be added, for example, onto unsaturated bonds). Thus Steckhan [294] has proposed to cleave directly or indirectly (by means of Br— introduction in the anolyte as electrolyte) the central bond of diaryldisulfides and to add the produced electrophile onto ethylenic double bonds. 

Metal-carbon (M—C) bonds are thermodynamically unstable with regard to their hydrolysis products. Water can attack M—C bonds either by proton transfer (H+, electrophilic reaction) or via the oxygen (OH2 or OH, nucleophilic reaction). Examples are shown in Scheme 1. Ligands such as carbon monoxide and ethylene are activated toward nucleophilic attack upon coordination to (low-valent) metals, e.g., Pd2+. A number of C—C-bond forming reactions derive from this activation. Allyl ligands are generated by proton attack to the terminal 1,3-diene carbon... 

Alkylation and other electrophilic reactions of vinyl sulphides and selenides following of-metallation include a number of useful synthetic procedures. Addition of an alkyl-lithium to phenyl vinyl selenide gives the cc-lithio- -alkylated selenide, which, on further alkylation and oxidative deselenation, gives the 1,2-disubstituted ethylene (H2C=CHSePh - R CHjCHLiSePh - R CH2CHR SePh - R CH=CHR ), thus permitting the vinyl selenide to be... 

Electrophilic reactions are not usually observed, e.g., it was not possible to obtain a haloacetate from F5SCH=CH2 under the same conditions (acetic acid, bromine, mercury acetate) where perfluoroalkyl-substituted ethylenes are known to yield haloacetates. An exception is the rather easy (47) addition of SO3 to F SCH=CF2> although a significant amount of by-product is formed, one of which is formed in an intricate reaction that leads to the degradation of the SF5-group (48). 

Thus in neutral medium the reactivity of 2-aminothiazoles derivatives toward sp C electrophilic centers usually occurs through the ring nitrogen. A notable exception is provided by the reaction between 2-amino-thiazole and a solution (acetone-water, 1 1) of ethylene oxide (183) that yields 2-(2-hydroxyethylamino)thiazole (39) (Scheme 28), Structure 39... 

Which molecular orbital of ethylene (tt or tt ) is the most impor 1 tant one to look at in a reaction in which ethylene is attacked by an electrophile J... 

Direct Chlorination of Ethylene. Direct chlorination of ethylene is generally conducted in Hquid EDC in a bubble column reactor. Ethylene and chlorine dissolve in the Hquid phase and combine in a homogeneous catalytic reaction to form EDC. Under typical process conditions, the reaction rate is controlled by mass transfer, with absorption of ethylene as the limiting factor (77). Ferric chloride is a highly selective and efficient catalyst for this reaction, and is widely used commercially (78). Ferric chloride and sodium chloride [7647-14-5] mixtures have also been utilized for the catalyst (79), as have tetrachloroferrate compounds, eg, ammonium tetrachloroferrate [24411-12-9] NH FeCl (80). The reaction most likely proceeds through an electrophilic addition mechanism, in which the catalyst first polarizes chlorine, as shown in equation 5. The polarized chlorine molecule then acts as an electrophilic reagent to attack the double bond of ethylene, thereby faciHtating chlorine addition (eq. 6) ... 

What about the second reactant, HBr As a strong acid, HBr is a powerful proton (H+) donor and electrophile. Thus, the reaction between HBr and ethylene is a typical electrophile-nucleophile combination, characteristic of all polar reactions. 

The electrophilic addition of HBr to ethylene is only one example of a polar process there are many others that vve ll study in detail in later chapters. But regardless of the details of individual reactions, all polar reactions take place between an electron-poor site and an electron-rich site and involve the donation of an electron pair from a nucleophile to an electrophile. 

We call the carbocation, which exists only transiently during the course of the multistep reaction, a reaction intermediate. As soon as the intermediate is formed in the first step by reaction of ethylene with H+, it reacts further with Br in a second step to give the final product, bromoethane. This second step has its own activation energy (AG ), its own transition state, and its own energy change (AG°). We can picture the second transition state as an activated complex between the electrophilic carbocation intermediate and the nucleophilic bromide anion, in which Br- donates a pair of electrons to the positively charged carbon atom as the new C-Br bond starts to form. 

Historically, ethylene potymerization was carried out at high pressure (1000-3000 atm) and high temperature (100-250 °C) in the presence of a catalyst such as benzoyl peroxide, although other catalysts and reaction conditions are now more often used. The key step is the addition of a radical to the ethylene double bond, a reaction similar in many respects to what takes place in the addition of an electrophile. In writing the mechanism, recall that a curved half-arrow, or "fishhook" A, is used to show the movement of a single electron, as opposed to the full curved arrow used to show the movement of an electron pair in a polar reaction. 

Figure 12.5. Ethylene oxidation on Pt finely dispersed on Au supported on YSZ.7 Effect of the current 1 on x 1, where x is the time constant measured during a galvanostatic transient experiment with I as the applied current x is obtained by fitting either r/r0=exp(-t/x) or l-exp(-t/x) to the experimental data depending on the sign of the current and whether the reaction is electrophilic or electrophobic, (a) Positive values of I for electrophilic (squares, T=371°C, pO2=18.0 kPa, Pc2H4=0-6 kPa) and electrophobic behavior (circle, T=421°C, p02=l 4.8 kPa, Pc2H4 CU kPa) (b) negative currents, electrophilic behavior (T=421°C, p02=14.8 kPa, pC2H4=0.1 kPa. Reprints with permission from Academic Press.

Systematic studies of the selectivity of electrophilic bromine addition to ethylenic bonds are almost inexistent whereas the selectivity of electrophilic bromination of aromatic compounds has been extensively investigated (ref. 1). This surprising difference arises probably from particular features of their reaction mechanisms. Aromatic substitution exhibits only regioselectivity, which is determined by the bromine attack itself, i.e. the selectivity- and rate-determining steps are identical. 

---