Substituent effects nucleophilic aromatic

A nitro group behaves the same way m both reactions it attracts electrons Reaction is retarded when electrons flow from the aromatic ring to the attacking species (electrophilic aromatic substitution) Reaction is facilitated when electrons flow from the attacking species to the aromatic ring (nucleophilic aromatic substitution) By being aware of the connection between reactivity and substituent effects you will sharpen your appreciation of how chemical reactions occur... 

Nucleophilic aromatic substitution has been the subject of frequent and extensive reviews1-10. The data on reaction rates, reaction products, substituent effects, salt effects, etc. are all readily available and need not be reassembled here. In spite of this abundance of both data and discussion, some questions of mechanism remain incompletely resolved. 

In some cases the effect of the nature of aromatic hydrogen substituent has been also observed (Table 48.2). These results contrast with those obtained using typical homogeneous Bronsted acid catalysts (e.g., sulphuric) for the acylation of the same substrate with acetic anhydride, under the same experimental conditions, where the yields (98%, 95%, 91% for R=N02, H, OMe, respectively) do not significantly depend on the nucleophile s substituent nature [23]. These data imderline the contribution of the heterogeneous catalyst. 

Displacements such as this show all the usual characteristics of electrophilic aromatic substitution (substituent effects, etc., see below), but they are normally of much less preparative significance than the examples we have already considered. In face of all the foregoing discussion of polar intermediates it is pertinent to point out that homolytic aromatic substitution reactions, i.e. by radicals, are also known (p. 331) as too is attack by nucleophiles (p. 167). 

It might be expected that the activating effect of p-NO2 on nucleophilic aromatic substitution would be related to the a value of the substituent. From various studies of nucleophilic aromatic substitution, Miller and Parker213 obtained a <7 value for /2-NO2 of 1.27, very close to the values based on the ionization of substituted phenols or anilinium ions (Section ELD). 

Nucleophilic substitution is the widely accepted reaction route for the photosubstitution of aromatic nitro compounds. There are three possible mechanisms11,12, namely (i) direct displacement (S/v2Ar ) (equation 9), (ii) electron transfer from the nucleophile to the excited aromatic substrate (SR wlAr ) (equation 10) and (iii) electron transfer from the excited aromatic compound to an appropriate electron acceptor, followed by attack of the nucleophile on the resultant aromatic radical cation (SRi w 1 Ar ) (equation 11). Substituent effects are important criteria for probing the reaction mechanisms. While the SR wlAr mechanism, which requires no substituent activation, is insensitive to substituent effects, both the S/v2Ar and the Sr+n lAr mechanisms show strong and opposite substituent effects. 

Due to its strong activating effect in nucleophilic aromatic substitutions and to the possibility of its removal by decarbonylation, the aldehyde function has been used for the preparation of [ F]fluoroarenes not bearing electron-withdrawing substituents. Decarbonylations, possible in the presence of Pd/C [ 161 ], are more efficient in terms of time (15 min vs 1 h) and yields (80%) when using Wilkin-... 

Similarly, those reactions that are strongly assisted by withdrawal of electrons from the reaction site, such as nucleophilic aromatic substitution, give a poor fit to a Hammett plot for the substituents that are capable of withdrawing electrons by delocalization (—N02, —N2 , —C=N, and so on). An example is Reaction 16 in Table 26-7. To correlate reactivity data with structures where strong resonance effects operate, different sets of substituent constants are required.1... 

---