Methyl electronic effect

In a M.o. treatment of the electronic effect of the methyl group it was found necessary to take into account both inductive and hypercon-jugative effects. This treatment is commented on in 9.3 below. 

The quatemization of the nitrogen atom of the thiazole ring (the Menschutkin s reaction) by alkyl halide or methyl tosylate can be used to measure the reactivity of this atom and thus to evaluate steric and electronic effects of ring substituents. 

Taft began the LFER attack on steric effects as part of his separation of electronic and steric effects in aliphatic compounds, which is discussed in Section 7.3. For our present purposes we abstract from that treatment the portion relevant to aromatic substrates. Hammett p values for alkaline ester hydrolysis are in the range +2.2 to +2.8, whereas for acid ester hydrolysis p is close to zero (see Table 7-2). Taft, therefore, concluded that electronic effects of substituents are much greater in the alkaline than in the acid series and. in fact, that they are negligible in the acid series. This left the steric effect alone controlling relative reactivity in the acid series. A steric substituent constant was defined [by analogy with the definition of cr in Eq. (7-22)] by Eq. (7-43), where k is the rate constant for acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of an orr/to-substituted benzoate ester and k is the corresponding rate constant for the on/to-methyl ester note that CH3, not H, is the reference substituent. ... 

The separation of mixtures involving N-methyl-JLtetrahydropyridines into their pure components by means of gas-liquid chromatography was discussed in a report by Holik et al. (87). They found that, using tris(/3-cyanoethoxymethyl)-y-picoline as the stationary phase, the primary factors involved in the specific retention volumes of these enamines is the electronic effect of a methyl substituent and the nitrogen atom on the carbon-carbon double bond. It was observed that 1,3-dimethyl-Zl -tetrahydropyridine (141) has a smaller specific retention volume and, hence, is eluted before... 

A transition state assembly as depicted in Scheme 1.23 was proposed in order to interpret the observed selectivity. Electronic effects are thought to be operative, as the methyl and bromo substituents in transition state 83 are sterically similar. 

Studies have established that the partition between transition states 3 and 4 depends on the nature of the diol unit bound to boron and on the steric and electronic effects of the a-sub-stituent X23. The data shown below demonstrate that the reactions of2-(l-methyl-2-propenyl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-l,3,2-dioxaborolane proceed with a moderate preference for transition state 3 with the C2 methyl group in an axial position. Selectivity diminishes with 2-(l-methyl-2-propenyl)-l,3,2-dioxaborolane and reverses with dimethyl (l-methyl-2-propenyl)boronale, suggesting that steric interactions (gauche interactions in the case of the tetramethyl-1,3,2-diox-aborolane) between X and the diol unit on boron are capable of destabilizing transition state 4 relative to 3. 

The mode of the diastcrcofacial selectivity is completely reversed in the case of reactions with A -methyl A-acyliminium precursors 4176. Now the nitrogen atom of the A-acyliminium ion is not able to chelate with the tin atom and the lower diastereoselectivity is explained by the less rigid nonchelation-controlled transition state 5. An electronic effect, such as n-iz attraction between the electron-deficient carbonyl group of the acyliminium ion and the electron-rich phenyl group of the phcnylthio substituent R, may account for the somewhat higher diastereoselectivity in the case of arylthio substituents R. 

Cycloaddition reactions of (E)-l-acetoxybutadiene (18a) and (E)-l-methoxy-butadiene (18b) with the acrylic and crotonic dienophiles 19 were studied under high pressure conditions [9] (Table 5.1). Whereas the reactions of 18a with acrylic dienophiles regioselectively and stereoselectively afforded only ortho-enJo-adducts 20 in fair to good yields, those with crotonic dienophiles did not work. Similar results were obtained in the reactions with diene 18b. The loss of reactivity of the crotonic dienophiles has been ascribed to the combination of steric and electronic effects due to the methyl group at the )S-carbon of the olefinic double bond. 

The oxidation of a series of olefins reveals the reaction to be very insensitive to electronic effects . Phenyl and methyl substitution of the olefin mildly accelerate reaction. In all cases A , is pH-independent. Data are collected in Table 1. 

Relatively small substituents at C(2) and C(3) of the diene exert little steric influence on the rate of D-A addition. 2,3-Dimethylbutadiene reacts with maleic anhydride about ten times faster than butadiene owing to the electronic effect of the methyl... 

Reinhoudt et al.53) have reported the first synthesis of a monocyclic thiepin stabilized by electronic effects of the substituents. This synthesis utilizes the idea described in Section 2.3.3. 3-Methyl-4-pyrrolidinothiophene (85a) was treated in deuteriochloroform at —30 °C with dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate. H-NMR monitoring of the reaction indicated that a [2 + 2]cycloaddition proceeded slowly at this temperature giving the 2-thiabicyclo[3.2.0]heptadiene (86a) which rearranged via ring opening of the cyclobutene moiety to the 4-pyrrolydinylthiepin (87a). At the... 

In this section, we present a unified picture of the different electronic effects that combine to determine methyl rotor potentials in the S0, Sp and D0 electronic states of different substituted toluenes. Our approach is based on analysis of ab initio wavefunctions using the natural bond orbitals (NBOs)33 of Weinhold and cowork-ers. We will attempt to decompose the methyl torsional potential into two dominant contributions. The first is repulsive steric interactions, which are important only when an ortho substituent is present. The second is attractive donor-acceptor interactions between CH bond pairs and empty antibonding orbitals vicinal to the CH bonds. In the NBO basis, these attractive interactions dominate the barrier in ethane (1025 cm-1) and in 2-methylpropene (1010 cm-1) see Figure 3. By analogy, donor-acceptor attractions are important in toluenes whenever there is a substantial difference in bond order between the two ring CC bonds adjacent to the C-CH3 bond. Viewed the other way around, we can use the measured methyl rotor potential as a sensitive probe of local ring geometry. 

Finally, we return to 2-fluoro-6-chlorotoluene (Figure 10), for which it <— it excitation and n ionization cause only minor changes in the rotor potential. In this disubstituted case, the appropriate pseudo-C2 axis would coincide with the methyl rotor axis itself. We expect the Hiickel orbitals to align with the rotor axis, which would make 0a = Ob in all three electronic states, much as in sixfold cases. Accordingly, there is little effect of electronic excitation on the barrier height, which is presumably dominated by steric repulsion in all three electronic states. In terms of ic-electron effects, 2-fluoro-6-chlorotoluene behaves much like a sixfold case. 

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