Nucleophilic aromatic single-step mechanism

Synthetically important substitutions of aromatic compounds can also be done by nucleophilic reagents. There are several general mechanism for substitution by nucleophiles. Unlike nucleophilic substitution at saturated carbon, aromatic nucleophilic substitution does not occur by a single-step mechanism. The broad mechanistic classes that can be recognized include addition-elimination, elimination-addition, and metal-catalyzed processes. (See Section 9.5 of Part A to review these mechanisms.) We first discuss diazonium ions, which can react by several mechanisms. Depending on the substitution pattern, aryl halides can react by either addition-elimination or elimination-addition. Aryl halides and sulfonates also react with nucleophiles by metal-catalyzed mechanisms and these are discussed in Section 11.3. 

Finally, we ask, if the reactive triads in Schemes 1 and 19 are common to both electrophilic and charge-transfer nitration, why is the nucleophilic pathway (k 2) apparently not pertinent to the electrophilic activation of toluene and anisole One obvious answer is that the electrophilic nitration of these less reactive [class (ii)] arenes proceeds via a different mechanism, in which N02 is directly transferred from V-nitropyridinium ion in a single step, without the intermediacy of the reactive triad, since such an activation process relates to the more conventional view of electrophilic aromatic substitution. However, the concerted mechanism for toluene, anisole, mesitylene, t-butylbenzene, etc., does not readily accommodate the three unique facets that relate charge-transfer directly to electrophilic nitration, viz., the lutidine syndrome, the added N02 effect, and the TFA neutralization (of Py). Accordingly, let us return to Schemes 10 and 19, and inquire into the nature of thermal (adiabatic) electron transfer in (87) vis-a-vis the (vertical) charge-transfer in (62). 

Mechanism (24) shows significant formal analogies to the 8 2-mechanism in electrophilic aromatic substitution. It has sometimes been denoted as 2-mechanism. This nomenclature is, however, misleading as S 2 was originally introduced by Ingold for that type of aliphatic nucleophilic substitution in which synchronous bond-formation and bond-breaking occur in a single step. 

Processes involving a single-electron transfer (SET) step and cation-radical intermediates can occur in the reactions of X - or X -iodanes with electron-rich organic substrates in polar, non-nucleophilic solvents. Kita and coworkers first found that the reactions of p-substituted phenol ethers 29 with [bis(trifluoroacetoxy)iodo]benzene in the presence of some nucleophiles in fluoroalcohol solvents afford products of nucleophilic aromatic substitution 31 via a SET mechanism (Scheme 1.5) [212,213]. On the basis of detailed UV and ESR spectroscopic measurements, it was confirmed that this process involves the generation of cation-radicals 30 produced by SET oxidation through the charge-transfer complex of phenyl ethers with the hypervalent iodine reagent [213,214],... 

---