Electrophilicity, trend

Ground-state oxygen atoms exhibit an electrophilic trend in the rates of their addition to olefins. 

Roy, R.K., Usha, V., Paulovic, J. and Hirao, K. (2005) Are the local electrophilicity descriptors reliable indicators of global electrophilicity trends J. Phys. Chem. A, 109, 4601 606. 

Acrylonitrile reacts with the sodium salt of 4.5-dimethvl-A-4-thiazoline-2-thione (73J (R4 = R5 = Me) to yield 3-(2-cyanoethyl)-4.5-dimethyl-A-4-thiazoline-2-thione (74) (R4 = R, = Me) (Scheme 35 (160). Humphlett s studies of this reaction showed that the size of the R4 substituent is a determinant factor for the S versus N ratio (161. 162). If R4 == H, 100% of the N-substituted product (74) is obtained this drops to 50% when R4 = methyl, and only the S-substituted product (75) is obtained when R4 = phenyl. The same trend is observed with various CH2 = CH-X (X = C00CH3. COCH3) reagents (149). The S/N ratio also depends on the electrophilic center for CH2 = CH-X systems thus S-reaction occurs predominantly with acrylonitrile, whereas N-substitution predominates with methvlvinvlketone (149). 

Electrophilic Attack. A variety of boranes, heteroboranes, and metaHaboranes undergo electrophilic substitution. SusceptibiUty of boranes to electrophilic attack is often detected by deuteron—proton exchange experiments. Eor example, electrophilic hydrogen—deuterium exchange of occurs at the l-,2-,3-, and 4-positions when exposed to DCl in the presence of AlCl (81). The trend to increasing positive sites in is... 

Because nitration has been studied for a wide variety of aromatic compounds, it is a useful reaction with which to illustrate the directing effect of substituent groups. Table 10.3 presents some of the data. A variety of reaction conditions are represented, so direct comparison is not always valid, but the trends are nevertheless clear. It is important to remember that other electrophiles, while following the same qualitative trends, show large quantitative differences in position selectivity. 

Absolute rate data for Friedel-Crafts reactions are difficult to obtain. The reaction is complicated by sensitivity to moisture and heterogeneity. For this reason, most of the structure-reactivity trends have been developed using competitive methods, rather than by direct measurements. Relative rates are established by allowing the electrophile to compete for an excess of the two reagents. The product ratio establishes the relative reactivity. These studies reveal low substrate and position selectivity. 

Substituted arylamines can be either more basic or less basic than aniline, depending on the substituent. Electron-donating substituents, such as — CH3, -NH2, and -OCH3, which increase the reactivity of an aromatic ring toward electrophilic substitution (Section 16.4), also increase the basicity of the corresponding arylamine. Electron-withdrawing substituents, such as —Cl, -NO2, and -CN, which decrease ring reactivity toward electrophilic substitution, also decrease arylamine basicity. Table 24.2 considers only -substituted anilines, but similar trends are observed for ortho and meta derivatives. 

The overall trend of reactivities for t-butoxy radicals with the fluoro-olcfins more closely parallels that for methyl radicals than that for the electrophilic trifluoromethyl or trichloromethyl radicals. 

The transient radicals produced in reactions of hydroxy radicals with vinyl monomers in aqueous solution have been detected directly by EPR43 439 or UV spectroscopy,440-441 These studies indicate that hydroxy radicals react with monomers and other species at or near the diffusion-controlled limit ( Table 3.7). However, high reactivity does not mean a complete lack of specificity. Hydroxy radicals are electrophilic and trends in the relative reactivity of the hydroxy radicals toward monomers can be explained on this basis/97... 

The fraction of head-to-head linkages in the poly(fluoro-olefms) increases in the series PVF2 < PVF PVF3 (Tabic 4.2). This can be rationalized in terms of the propensity of electrophilic radicals to add preferentially to the more electron rich end of monomers (i.e, that with the lowest number of fluorines). This trend is also seen in the reactions of trifluoromethyl radicals wilh the fluoro-olefins (see 2.3). 

Thiols react more rapidly with nucleophilic radicals than with electrophilic radicals. They have very large Ctr with S and VAc, but near ideal transfer constants (C - 1.0) with acrylic monomers (Table 6.2). Aromatic thiols have higher C,r than aliphatic thiols but also give more retardation. This is a consequence of the poor reinitiation efficiency shown by the phenylthiyl radical. The substitution pattern of the alkanethiol appears to have only a small (<2-fokl) effect on the transfer constant. Studies on the reactions of small alkyl radicals with thiols indicate that the rate of the transfer reaction is accelerated in polar solvents and, in particular, water.5 Similar trends arc observed for transfer to 1 in S polymerization with Clr = 1.4 in benzene 3.6 in CUT and 6.1 in 5% aqueous CifiCN.1 In copolymerizations, the thiyl radicals react preferentially with electron-rich monomers (Section 3.4.3.2). 

Just the reverse trend characterizes fc2. This reaction is aided by electron donation to the carbonyl carbon, as would be expected if the mechanism consists of electrophilic addition of the proton to the OH group. The reaction constant is p = -1.74. 

In the structure 24a, the triphenylphosphine is strongly bound to the electrophilic phosphorus centre (PP=2.206A) which indicates a strong covalent character of this bond. Upon warming the solution to 20 °C decomposition takes place and a mixture of bicyclotetraphosphanes is formed. Interestingly, some structural trends towards the formation of ion pairs between a donor and an acceptor were also reported in the push-puU diphosphene structures 25-27 [69] (Fig. 4). 

They demonstrated that electron-deficient R groups and electron-rich R substituents at S accelerated the reductive elimination. They proposed 123 (Lj = DPPE, R = Ph, R = Ar) as a transition state, where R acts as an electrophile and thiolate as a nucleophile. The Hammet plot for the reductive elimination showed that the resonance effect of the substituent in R determines the inductive effect of the R group, and the effect in SR showed an acceptable linear relationship with the standard o-values. The relative rate for sulfide elimination as a function of the hybrid valence configuration of the carbon center bonded to palladium followed the trend sp > sp spl... 

Examination of the HOMO and LUMO orbitals in these TSs indicates that the electronic effect operates mainly through the LUMO. The EWG cyano tends to localize the LUMO on the (3-carbon, whereas ERG substituents have the opposite effect. Similar trends were found for Pd coordinated by diimine ligands.150 These results indicate that the Markovnikov rule applies with the more electrophilic Pd complexes. When steric effects become dominant, the Pd adds to the less hindered position. 

An HSAB analysis of singlet carbene reactivity based on B3LYP/6-31G computations has calculated the extent of charge transfer for substituted alkenes,122 and the results are summarized in Figure 10.3 The trends are as anticipated for changes in structure of both the carbene and alkene. The charge transfer interactions are consistent with HOMO-LUMO interactions between the carbene and alkene. Similarly, a correlation was found for the global electrophilicity parameter, co, and the ANmax parameters (see Topic 1.5, Part A for definition of these DFT-based parameters).123... 

There have been a number of computational studies of the epoxidation reaction. These studies have generally found that the hydrogen-bonded peroxy acid is approximately perpendicular to the axis of the double bond, giving a spiro structure.75 Figure 12.8 shows TS structures and Ea values based on B3LYP/6-31G computations. The Ea trend is as expected for an electrophilic process OCH3 < CH3 CH = CH2 < H < CN. Similar trends were found in MP4/6-31G and QCISD/6-31G computations. 

This review has attempted to bring together the reactions of ADC compounds which are useful in heterocyclic synthesis, and to develop the general trends that have so far appeared in their reactivity. Thus, in general, ADC compounds are more powerful dienophiles than the corresponding C=C compounds, particularly when the azo bond is in the cis configuration. However, they are also more reactive as enophiles and electrophiles, and may react as such even in cases where Diels-Alder (or other) cycloaddition is formally possible, and where the corresponding C=C compounds do react as dienophiles. Nevertheless, despite this added complication, the major use of ADC compounds has been as dienophiles in the synthesis of pyridazines... 

Some years later, Kochi et al (Fukuzumi and Kochi, 1981) applied their theory on electron and charge transfers to electrophilic alkene bromination (Kochi, 1988) by comparing the reactivities of various alkenes in bromination and in mercuration. Although the substituent effect trends in the two reactions are totally different, a linear relationship (7) is observed when the reactivities... 

Numerous p-values for various electrophilic additions to styrene itself are available (Schmid and Garratt, 1977). Strictly speaking, the reaction constants measure only the sensitivity of the reaction to substituent effects they depend at the same time on the solvent, on the position of the transition state on the reaction coordinate (charge magnitude) and on the way in which substituent effects are transmitted (charge location). In particular, the observed trend of p-values for the chlorination ( — 3.22 Yates and Leung, 1980), bromination (—5.7 Ruasse et al, 1978) and sulfenylation ( — 2.41 ... 

Pyridine is a jt-electron-deficient heterocycle. Due to the electronegativity of the nitrogen atom, the a and y positions bear a partial positive charge, making the C(2), C(4), and C(6) positions prone to nucleophilic attacks. A similar trend occurs in the context of palladium chemistry. The a and y positions of halopyridines are more susceptible to the oxidative addition to Pd(0) relative to simple carbocyclic aryl halides. Even a- and y-chloropyridines are viable electrophilic substrates for Pd-catalyzed reactions under standard conditions. 

Due to the electronegativity of the two nitrogen atoms, pyrimidine is a deactivated, rc-electron-deficient heterocycle. Its chemical behavior is comparable to that of 1,3-dinitrobenzene or 3-nitropyridine. One or more electron-donating substituents on the pyrimidine ring is required for electrophilic substitution to occur. In contrast, nucleophilic displacement takes place on pyrimidine more readily than pyridine. The trend also translates to palladium chemistry 4-chloropyrimidine oxidatively adds to Pd(0) more readily than does 2-chloropyridine. 

Evaluation of the only appropriate Fukui function is required for investigating an intramolecular reaction, as local softness is merely scaling of Fukui function (as shown in Equation 12.7), and does not alter the intramolecular reactivity trend. For this type, one needs to evaluate the proper Fukui functions (/+ or / ) for the different potential sites of the substrate. For example, the Fukui function values for the C and O atoms of H2CO, shown above, predicts that O atom should be the preferred site for an electrophilic attack, whereas C atom will be open to a nucleophilic attack. Atomic Fukui function for electrophilic attack (fc ) for the ring carbon atoms has been used to study the directing ability of substituents in electrophilic substitution reaction of monosubstituted benzene [23]. In some cases, it was shown that relative electrophilicity (f+/f ) or nucleophilicity (/ /f+) indices provide better intramolecular reactivity trend [23]. For example, basicity of substituted anilines could be explained successfully using relative nucleophilicity index ( / /f 1) [23]. Note however that these parameters are not able to differentiate the preferred site of protonation in benzene derivatives, determined from the absolute proton affinities [24],... 

These indices have been used to study the reactivity for a series of chlorobenzenes and a good correlation is observed, for example, between W and toxicity of chlorobenzene [41]. For a detail discussion of this concept and its applications, we refer the readers to a recent review [41,42]. For studying intramolecular reactivity, these philicity indices and local softness contain the same information as obtained from the Fukui functions, because they simply scale the Fukui functions. In some cases the relative electrophilicity and relative nucleophilicity may be used although they provide similar trends as s(r) and co(r) in most cases [43]. In the same vein, the spin-donicity and spin-philicity, which refer to the philicity of open-shell systems [44], could also be utilized to unravel the reactivity of high-spin species, such as the carbenes, nitrenes, and phosphinidenes [45]. 

It is observed that when the field is applied toward the central atom (say from the line joining the two H atoms to the O atom along the principal axis, in case of H20) of all the species, and if the central atom is more electronegative, the chemical potential and hardness decrease with increasing field values [41], For example, when the electric field is applied toward the O atom in H20, the chemical potential and hardness decrease. On the other hand, when the field is applied along the principal axis toward the central atom, the nucleophilicity decreases for that atom, provided the central atom is more electronegative. The nucleophilicity of O in H20 decreases when the electric field is applied toward that atom. Moreover, the electrophilicity of H atoms in H20 decreases. This trend is the same as observed in case of linear molecules. Here, the results of only one molecule (H20) are presented. For details, the reader may refer to our recent paper [41],... 

Taken as a whole, the collection should serve as a reasonable representation of how the field is progressing and evolving and should serve as a model for gauging the current trends. It is hoped that the book can inspire the younger researchers who are still trying to find their niche and can be a useful source for students who are in the process of deciding whether or not to enter into this area. There is no doubt in my mind that much remains to be learned and that electrophilic chemistry and electron-deficient reactive intermediates will continue to play a pivotal role in structural/mechanistic and synthetic chemistry, both in the traditional sense and as applied to interdisciplinary areas. 

Since the latter conditions pertain to aromatic nitration solely via the homolytic annihilation of the cation radical in Scheme 16, it follows from the isomeric distributions in (81) that the electrophilic nitrations of the less reactive aromatic donors (toluene, mesitylene, anisole, etc.) also proceed via Scheme 19. If so, why do the electrophilic and charge-transfer pathways diverge when the less reactive aromatic donors are treated with other /V-nitropyridinium reagents, particularly those derived from the electron-rich MeOPy and MePy The conundrum is cleanly resolved in Fig. 17, which shows the rate of homolytic annihilation of aromatic cation radicals by NO, (k2) to be singularly insensitive to cation-radical stability, as evaluated by x. By contrast, the rate of nucleophilic annihilation of ArH+- by pyridine (k2) shows a distinctive downward trend decreasing monotonically from toluene cation radical to anthracene cation radical. Indeed, the... 

These trends were further confirmed through reactions of the foregoing chiral carbonate and phosphate derivatives with other electrophiles (Eqs. 9.32-9.34) [39]. For example, on protonolysis or deuterolysis, the allenyltitanium intermediate derived from the tertiary carbonate of Eq. 9.32 afforded an alkyne of 90% enantiopurity. Based on the configuration of this product and the assumption of a syn elimination to form the allenyltitanium, the protonolysis was suggested to take place by a syn SE2 pathway. In contrast, chlorination of this allenyltitanium intermediate follows an anti pathway (Eq. 9.33). 

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