Electrophilic Substitution Reactivity

Electrophilic Substitution Reactivity Much of the electrophilic reactivity of aromatics is described in great detail in a comprehensive recent book of Taylor [10]. We shall focus attention on the electrophilic substitution reactivity of annelated benzenes and try to interpret the orientational ability of fused small rings. For this purpose we consider here Wheland r complexes [89], which seem to represent very well transition states of the electrophilic substitution reactions. It is also convenient to take the proton as a model of the electrophilic reagent. In order to delineate rehybridization and 7r-electron localization effects, let us consider a series of angularly deformed benzenes (Fig. 21), where two vicinal CH bonds bent toward each other mimick a fused small ring. Angles c of 110° and 94° simulate five and four membered 

Apparently, the HF/6-31G model exaggerates regioselectivity of the (3-site. This is not unexpected since the Hartree-Fock overemphasizes the bond fixation in annelated ben- 

7r-bond fixation induced by the angular strain and protonation at a- and /3-positions, respectively. Their values are summarized in Table 12. It follows straightforwardly that 

Decomposition of the difference in energy E0 — E into interference energies describing counteraction and synaction of the two localization patterns occuring upon protonation (in kcal/mol). 

The situation in true compounds 8, 11 and 12 is similar albeit more complex because of the hyperconjugation [12]. As an illustrative example let us consider benzocyclobutene 11. The corresponding homodesmic reaction for the a-protonation reads  

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Aniline and nitrobenzene electrophilic substitution reactivity We briefly consider the effect of pi-donor or pi-acceptor substituents on aromatic conjugation patterns for two representative examples aniline (23) and nitrobenzene (24). The leading NBO interactions between ring and substituent in these species are depicted in Fig. 3.47. 

Attempts have been made to investigate the electrophilic substitution reactivity of coordinated aniline relative to the free ligand. For CrCl3 (an)3, little rate enhancement was observed for bromina-tion reactions, but extensive complex decomposition accompanied the substitution.895 Complexes such as m-CoCl(en)2(an)2+ have abnormally high base hydrolysis rates when compared with their alkylamine analogues.15... 

This procedure has been extensively applied in correlating side-chain reactivities283-289 and spectroscopic quantities.290 In correlating electrophilic substitution reactivity data, the Hammett a constants must, of course, be replaced by the Brown and Okamoto a+ constants.185... 

If acetoxylation were a conventional electrophilic substitution it is hard to understand why it is not more generally observed in nitration in acetic anhydride. The acetoxylating species is supposed to be very much more selective than the nitrating species, and therefore compared with the situation in (say) toluene in which the ratio of acetoxylation to nitration is small, the introduction of activating substituents into the aromatic nucleus should lead to an increase in the importance of acetoxylation relative to nitration. This is, in fact, observed in the limited range of the alkylbenzenes, although the apparently severe steric requirement of the acetoxylation species is a complicating feature. The failure to observe acetoxylation in the reactions of compounds more reactive than 2-xylene has been attributed to the incursion of another mechan-104... 

The use of q and tt separately as reactivity indices can lead to misleading results. Thus, whilst within the approximations used, the use of either separately leads to the same conclusions regarding electrophilic substitution into halogenobenzenes ( 9.1.4), the orientation of substitution in quinoline ( 9.4.2) cannot be explained even qualitatively using either alone. By taking the two in combination, it can be shown that as the values of Sa are progressively increased to simulate reaction, the differences in SE explain satisfactorily the observed orientation. ... 

The isolated molecule treatment of reactivity, which, in both the electronic theory and in m.o. theory, attempts to predict the site of electrophilic substitution from a consideration of the electron densities... 

The selectivity relationship merely expresses the proportionality between intermolecular and intramolecular selectivities in electrophilic substitution, and it is not surprising that these quantities should be related. There are examples of related reactions in which connections between selectivity and reactivity have been demonstrated. For example, the ratio of the rates of reaction with the azide anion and water of the triphenylmethyl, diphenylmethyl and tert-butyl carbonium ions were 2-8x10 , 2-4x10 and 3-9 respectively the selectivities of the ions decrease as the reactivities increase. The existence, under very restricted and closely related conditions, of a relationship between reactivity and selectivity in the reactions mentioned above, does not permit the assumption that a similar relationship holds over the wide range of different electrophilic aromatic substitutions. In these substitution reactions a difficulty arises in defining the concept of reactivity it is not sufficient to assume that the reactivity of an electrophile is related... 

The occurrence of a hydrogen isotope effect in an electrophilic substitution will certainly render nugatory any attempt to relate the reactivity of the electrophile with the effects of substituents. Such a situation occurs in mercuration in which the large isotope effect = 6) has been attributed to the weakness of the carbon-mercury bond relative to the carbon-hydrogen bond. The following scheme has been formulated for the reaction, and the occurrence of the isotope effect indicates that the magnitudes of A j and are comparable ... 

M.o. theory has had limited success in dealing with electrophilic substitution in the azoles. The performances of 7r-electron densities as indices of reactivity depends very markedly on the assumptions made in calculating them. - Localisation energies have been calculated for pyrazole and pyrazolium, and also an attempt has been made to take into account the electrostatic energy involved in bringing the electrophile up to the point of attack the model predicts correctly the orientation of nitration in pyrazolium. ... 

Numerous m.o.-theoretical calculations have been made on quinoline and quinolinium. Comparisons of the experimental results with the theoretical predictions reveals that, as expected (see 7.2), localisation energies give the best correlation. jr-Electron densities are a poor criterion of reactivity in electrophilic substitution the most reactive sites for both the quinolinium ion and the neutral molecule are predicted to be the 3-, 6- and 8-positions. ... 

Calculations for electrophilic substitution in the quinolinium ion can be compared with experiment, and for a range of values of h the predicted order of positional reactivities, s 8>6>3>7, agrees moderately well in a qualitative sense with the observed order of s 8>6>7>3 (table 10.3). Further evaluation of the method must await the results of more extensive calculations for a range of aromatic systems. 

Ten years ago we became interested in the possibility of using nitration as a process with which to study the reactivity of hetero-aromatic compounds towards electrophilic substitution. The choice of nitration was determined by the consideration that its mechanism was probably better imderstood than that of any other electrophilic substitution. Others also were pursuing the same objective, and a considerable amount of information has now been compiled. 

There are a wide variety of methods for introduction of substituents at C3. Since this is the preferred site for electrophilic substitution, direct alkylation and acylation procedures are often effective. Even mild electrophiles such as alkenes with EW substituents can react at the 3-position of the indole ring. Techniques for preparation of 3-lithioindoles, usually by halogen-metal exchange, have been developed and this provides access not only to the lithium reagents but also to other organometallic reagents derived from them. The 3-position is also reactive toward electrophilic mercuration. 

Reactivity of A-4-thiazoline-2-thiones and derivatives involves four main possibilities nucleophilic reactivity of exocyclic sulfur atom or ring nitrogen, electrophilic reactivity of carbon 2 and electrophilic substitution on carbon 5. 

The greater reactivity of the 5-position of selenazoles, compared to thiazoles, toward electrophilic substitution has also been demonstrated (19). Substituents in the 2-position possessing a mesomeric donor effect increase the reactivity, but, as Haginiwa (19) observed, also increase the tendancy to ring Opening,... 

III. Reactivity of the Selenazole Ring 1. Electrophilic Substitution Reactions... 

The high reactivity of the 5-position in 1.3-selenazoles toward electrophilic substitution was also observed on azocoupling. By reacting molar quantities of an aqueous solution of a diazonium salt with an ethanolic solution of a 2-arylamino selenazole. for example, the corresponding 2-arylamino-5 azoselenazoles are formed in a smooth reaction (100). They deposit from the deeply colored solution and form intenselv red-colored compounds after their recrystallization from a suitable solvent (Scheme 36l. 

Despite its V excessive character (340), thiazole, just as pyridine, is resistant to electrophilic substitution. In both cases the ring nitrogen deactivates the heterocyclic nucleus toward electrophilic attack. Moreover, most electrophilic substitutions, which are performed in acidic medium, involve the protonated form of thiazole or some quaternary thiazolium derivatives, whose reactivity toward electrophiles is still lower than that of the free base. 

From these results it appears that the 5-position of thiazole is two to three more reactive than the 4-position, that methylation in the 2-position enhances the rate of nitration by a factor of 15 in the 5-position and of 8 in the 4-position, that this last factor is 10 and 14 for 2-Et and 2-t-Bu groups, respectively. Asato (374) and Dou (375) arrived at the same figure for the orientation of the nitration of 2-methyl and 2-propylthiazole Asato used nitronium fluoroborate and the dinitrogen tetroxide-boron trifluoride complex at room temperature, and Dou used sulfonitric acid at 70°C (Table T54). About the same proportion of 4-and 5-isomers was obtained in the nitration of 2-methoxythiazole by Friedmann (376). Recently, Katritzky et al. (377) presented the first kinetic studies of electrophilic substitution in thiazoles the nitration of thiazoles and thiazolones (Table 1-55). The reaction was followed spec-trophotometrically and performed at different acidities by varying the... 

Another quantitative approach to the reactivity of thiazole (381) in reactions involving a cationic transition state, though not exactly of the electrophilic substitution type, deserves to be mentioned here because of... 

Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution. The Tt-excessive character of the pyrrole ring makes the indole ring susceptible to electrophilic attack. The reactivity is greater at the 3-position than at the 2-position. This reactivity pattern is suggested both by electron density distributions calculated by molecular orbital methods and by the relative energies of the intermediates for electrophilic substitution, as represented by the protonated stmctures (7a) and (7b). Stmcture (7b) is more favorable than (7a) because it retains the ben2enoid character of the carbocycHc ring (12). 

Beside being acidic, a significant industrial chemical property of phenol is the extremely high reactivity of its ring toward electrophilic substitution. If steric conditions permit, the substitution leads first to the formation of the 2- or 4-mono derivative, then to the 2,4- or 2,6-diderivative, and finally to the 2,4,6-triderivative. The halogenation of phenol produces mono-, di-, and tribal ophenols. 

A tertiary carbonium ion is more stable than a secondary carbonium ion, which is in turn more stable than a primary carbonium ion. Therefore, the alkylation of ben2ene with isobutylene is much easier than is alkylation with ethylene. The reactivity of substituted aromatics for electrophilic substitution is affected by the inductive and resonance effects of a substituent. An electron-donating group, such as the hydroxyl and methyl groups, activates the alkylation and an electron-withdrawing group, such as chloride, deactivates it. 

SuIfona.tlon, Sulfonation is a common reaction with dialkyl sulfates, either by slow decomposition on heating with the release of SO or by attack at the sulfur end of the O—S bond (63). Reaction products are usually the dimethyl ether, methanol, sulfonic acid, and methyl sulfonates, corresponding to both routes. Reactive aromatics are commonly those with higher reactivity to electrophilic substitution at temperatures > 100° C. Tn phenylamine, diphenylmethylamine, anisole, and diphenyl ether exhibit ring sulfonation at 150—160°C, 140°C, 155—160°C, and 180—190°C, respectively, but diphenyl ketone and benzyl methyl ether do not react up to 190°C. Diphenyl amine methylates and then sulfonates. Catalysis of sulfonation of anthraquinone by dimethyl sulfate occurs with thaHium(III) oxide or mercury(II) oxide at 170°C. Alkyl interchange also gives sulfation. 

Electrophilic substitution of thiophene occurs largely at the 2-position and the reactivity of the ring is greater than that of benzene. 3-Substituted derivatives are generally prepared by indirect means or through ring cyclization reactions. 

Resonance effects are the primary influence on orientation and reactivity in electrophilic substitution. The common activating groups in electrophilic aromatic substitution, in approximate order of decreasing effectiveness, are —NR2, —NHR, —NH2, —OH, —OR, —NO, —NHCOR, —OCOR, alkyls, —F, —Cl, —Br, —1, aryls, —CH2COOH, and —CH=CH—COOH. Activating groups are ortho- and para-directing. Mixtures of ortho- and para-isomers are frequently produced the exact proportions are usually a function of steric effects and reaction conditions. 

MO calculations of the cinnoline ring system show that the relative order of reactivities for electrophilic substitution is 5=8>6 = 7>3 4. This is confirmed experimentally, as nitration of cinnoline with a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids affords 5-nitrocinnoline (33%) and 8-nitrocinnoline (28%). Similarly, 4-methylcinnoline gives a mixture of 4-methyl-8-nitrocinnoline (28%) and 4-methyl-5-nitrocinnoline (13%). 

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