Experimental 4 arene

The synthetic procedure described is based on that reported earlier for the synthesis on a smaller scale of anthracene, benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, dibenz[a,c]anthracene, and phenanthrene in excellent yields from the corresponding quinones. Although reduction of quinones with HI and phosphorus was described in the older literature, relatively drastic conditions were employed and mixtures of polyhydrogenated derivatives were the principal products. The relatively milder experimental procedure employed herein appears generally applicable to the reduction of both ortho- and para-quinones directly to the fully aromatic polycyclic arenes. The method is apparently inapplicable to quinones having an olefinic bond, such as o-naphthoquinone, since an analogous reaction of the latter provides a product of undetermined structure (unpublished result). As shown previously, phenols and hydro-quinones, implicated as intermediates in the reduction of quinones by HI, can also be smoothly deoxygenated to fully aromatic polycyclic arenes under conditions similar to those described herein. 

The overall picture for the bis-arene systems is therefore not at all satisfactory, and much more experimental work is required on these compounds, especially for complexes representing d 6 and <2 8 configurations. 

There is no experimental evidence for 7r-complexation of arenes to gold centers in the condensed phase. Quantum-chemical calculations were carried out on various levels of theory for 1 1 and 2 1 complexes of benzene and substituted benzenes with Au+ in the gas phase. For all model systems investigated, it has been predicted that an -coordination to a single carbon atom is the ground state of the cation (Cy-symmetry for [(C6H6)Au]+ and 6 -symmetry for [(C6H6)2Au] ). Similar results were obtained for hexafluorobenzene, for which a coordina-... 

More mechanistic insight into the C-H functionalization process of arenes is provided by theoretical and experimental studies. Multifluorinated, electron poor, aromatic substrates readily undergo CH activation with coordina-tively unsaturated rhenium complexes, attributed to the stronger C-Re bond in the product, whereas with monofluorinated analogs, the if -complex predominates (Equation (60)).61... 

The nitrosonium cation can serve effectively either as an oxidant or as an electrophile towards different aromatic substrates. Thus the electron-rich polynuclear arenes suffer electron transfer with NO+BF to afford stable arene cation radicals (Bandlish and Shine, 1977 Musker et al., 1978). Other activated aromatic compounds such as phenols, anilines and indoles undergo nuclear substitution with nitrosonium species that are usually generated in situ from the treatment of nitrites with acid. It is less well known, but nonetheless experimentally established (Hunziker et al., 1971 Brownstein et al., 1984), that NO+ forms intensely coloured charge-transfer complexes with a wide variety of common arenes (30). For example, benzene, toluene,... 

The mechanistic conundrum presented by such a dichotomy between electron-transfer and electrophilic processes can only be rigorously resolved by the experimental proof of whether the cation radical (or the electrophilic adduct) is, or is not, the vital reactive intermediate. However, in a thermal (adiabatic) reaction between arene donors and the nitrosonium cation, such reactive intermediates cannot be formed in sufficient concentrations to be observed directly by conventional experimental methods since their rates of follow-up reactions must perforce always be faster than their rates of formation, except when they are formed in a reversible equilibrium like the... 

Experimental values of bond dissociation enthalpies are scarce compared with the data available for standard enthalpies of formation. This is not surprising because most chemical reactions that have been studied thermochemically involve the cleavage and the formation of several bonds. The measured standard reaction enthalpies are thus enthalpy balances of various bond dissociation enthalpies, whose individual values are often unknown. Consider, for example, reaction 5.10, where the arene ring in (q6-bcnzene)chromium tricarbonyl is replaced by three carbonyl ligands. The enthalpy of this reaction at 298.15 K,... 

Another isomerization reaction of arene oxides is equilibrium with oxe-pins [5], Here, the fused six-membered carbocycle and three-membered oxirane merge to form a seven-membered heterocycle, as shown in Fig. 10.2. An extensive computational and experimental study involving 75 epoxides of monocyclic, bicyclic, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons has revealed much information on the structural factors that influence the reaction rate and position of equilibrium [11], Thus, some compounds were stable as oxepins (e.g., naphthalene 2,3-oxide), while others exhibited a balanced equilibrium... 

Diarylamides with arenes activated by electron-donating substituents can be converted to azacycles by anodic oxidation through phenolic oxidative coupling reactions that can be a key step in the synthesis of alkaloids (Schemes 16 and 17). According to the nature of substituents and the experimental conditions, either spiro compounds [22] or non-spiro compounds [23, 24] were obtained. 

My initial plan involved dehydrogenation of cyclic alkanes to give stable arenes, particularly of cyclopentane to give cyclopentadienyl derivatives. My own experimental efforts with Pt were unavailing, but Jeimifer Quirk, a graduate student of mine working on Ir, took an interest in the project and found a small yield of Cp... 

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