Heteroatomic structures carbon-heteroatom double bonds

Metallaheterocycles with the metal atom capable of supporting a carbon-metal double bond, and with oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, or selenium as the second heteroatom are the only structures capable of full conjugation. These compounds show furan-like aromaticity with the heteroatom /i-electrons participating. No examples of this type of ring system were uncovered, undoubtedly due to the stability of the metalla-carbon double bonds required for their formation. 

Carbon may also form multiple bonds with many other elements. It is this ability that is one of the reasons for the richness of the chemistry of carbon. One of the commonest heteroatomic multiple bond systems in which carbon partakes involves oxygen. Draw the dot and cross structure of this carbon/ oxygen double bond system. 

A multiply bonded nitrogen atom deactivates carbon atoms a or y to it toward electrophilic attack thus initial substitution in 1,2- and 1,3-dihetero compounds should be as shown in structures (110) and (111). Pyrazoles (110 Z = NH), isoxazoles (110 Z = 0), isothiazoles (110 Z = S), imidazoles (111 Z = NH, tautomerism can make the 4- and 5-positions equivalent) and thiazoles (111 Z = S) do indeed undergo electrophilic substitution as expected. Little is known of the electrophilic substitution reactions of oxazoles (111 Z = O) and compounds containing three or more heteroatoms in one ring. Deactivation of the 4-position in 1,3-dihetero compounds (111) is less effective because of considerable double bond fixation (cf. Sections 4.01.3.2.1 and 4.02.3.1.7), and if the 5-position of imidazoles or thiazoles is blocked, substitution can occur in the 4-position (112). 

Furan, Pyrrole, and Thiophene.-—The carbon-heteroatom distances found in furan, pyrrole, and thiophene correspond to 5 = = 5%, 12 = = 6%, and 17 = = 10% double-bond character, respectively. Resonance of the normal structure I with structures of the types II and III (X = O, NH, S) is assumed to be responsible for this double-bond character, while excited structures characteristic... 

Significantly slower rates are found only for compounds that do not exhibit any aromatic ring or carbon-carbon double bond, and for aliphatic compounds with no easily abstractable H-atoms. Such H-atoms include those that are bound to carbon atoms carrying one or several electronegative heteroatoms or groups. (Note that the stabilization of a carbon radical (R ) is similar to that of a carbocation.) We will come back to such structure-reactivity considerations in Section 16.3, when discussing reaction of HO" with organic pollutants in the gas phase (i.e., in the atmosphere). 

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