Piperazine relative nucleophilicity

The initiating nucleophile in the vast majority of these studies is the hydroxide anion. However, in principle, any nucleophile can add to the keto or formyl group to give rise to an anionic intermediate, which then could act as an intramolecular nucleophile and effect hydrolysis of the ester. Their relative effectiveness will depend on two factors the relative extent of formation and the nucleophilicity of the adduct. The nucleophiles that have been investigated are hydroxide, cyanide, morpholine and piperazine. The only quantitative comparison available is that of hydroxide, morpholine and piperazine, which are effective in the order of ca. 102 10-3 1 (Bender et al., 1965 Dahlgren and Schell, 1967). For morpholine and piperazine this is as expected on the basis of their relative basicities. However, the expected order of increasing formation of the adducts would be cyanide > nitrogen bases > hydroxide (Hine, 1971). At this time, these results cannot be analysed further, but more work on the systems could enable the structural dependence and reactivity to be elucidated. 

From the pATa values shown, there is relatively little difference in basicities for diethylamine, pyrrolidine, or piperidine. Note, however, that morpholine and piperazine are weaker bases than piperidine. This is the result of an electron-withdrawing inductive effect from the second heteroatom, making the nitrogen atom both less basic and also less nucleophilic. This makes morpholine a useful base with basicity between that of piperidine and pyridine pK 5.2) (see Section 4.6). The second pK value for the diamine piperazine is substantially lower than the first, since the inductive effect from the protonated amine will withdraw electrons away from the unprotonated amine (see Section 4.7). 

---