Pyrrole aromaticity estimates

Pyrrole has a planar, pentagonal (C2 ) stmcture and is aromatic in that it has a sextet of electrons. It is isoelectronic with the cyclopentadienyl anion. The TT-electrons are delocalized throughout the ring system, thus pyrrole is best characterized as a resonance hybrid, with contributing stmctures (1 5). These stmctures explain its lack of basicity (which is less than that of pyridine), its unexpectedly high acidity, and its pronounced aromatic character. The resonance energy which has been estimated at about 100 kj/mol (23.9 kcal/mol) is intermediate between that of furan and thiophene, or about two-thirds that of benzene (5). 

In summary, all estimates of resonance energies indicate a decrease in aromaticity in the sequence benzene > thiophene > pyrrole > furan. Similar sequences are also found for the benzo[6] and dibenzo analogues. A somewhat different sequence is found for the benzo[c] fused heterocycles with isoindole > benzo[c]thiophene > benzo[c]furan. As would be anticipated, the resonance energies for the benzo[c] heterocycles are substantially lower than those for their benzo[6] isomers. 

Structures and nomenclature for the most important five-membered monocycles with one or more heteroatoms are depicted in Scheme 1. The aromaticity scale in five-membered heterocycles has been long debated.97-101 The decreasing order of aromaticity based on various criteria is (DRE values in kcal/ mol) benzene (22.6) > thiophene (6.5) > selenophene > pyrrole (5.3) > tellurophene > fur an (4.3). Pyrrole and furan have comparable ring strains (Scheme 38). The aromaticity of furan is still controversial 100 the NMR shielding by ring current estimated it at about 60% of the aromaticity of benzene, and other methods reviewed earlier102 estimated it at less than 20%. 

An alternative approach to the experimental estimation of REs utilizes equilibrium (protonation) data rather than thermochemical data, the idea being that comparisons of the basicities of pyrrole and its benzo fused analogues with those of non-aromatic systems which form cations of 7r-electron structure similar to the aromatic compounds should furnish a measure of the loss of RE accompanying protonation of the aromatic system (76T1767, 72CI(L)335). Thus, for the a-protonation of N-methylpyrrole, the model non-aromatic system was chosen as (20). Combination of pKa values for the protonation of the aromatic and non-aromatic molecules, taking into account the intrinsic resonance stabilization of the... 

Pyrrole is believed to be more aromatic than furan, with an aromatic stabilization energy estimated to be 100-130 kj mole-1, thus only with such extremely powerful dienophiles as tetrakis(trifluoromethyl)Dewar thiophene were the IEDA adducts isolated. Therefore, several attempts to achieve an IEDAR with pyrroles using high pressure have been made [9-14]. 

Another theoretical criterion applied to estimation of aromaticity of homo- and heteroaromatic ring system is aromatic stabilization energy (ASE). Based on this approach, the aromatic sequence of five-membered ring systems (ASE in kcal mol-1) is pyrrole (20.6) > thiophene (18.6) > selenophene (16.7) > phosphole (3.2) [29], According to geometric criterion HOMA, based on the harmonic oscillator model [30-33], thiophene is more aromatic than pyrrole and the decreasing order of aromaticity is thiophene (0.891) > pyrrole (0.879) > selenophene (0.877) > furan (0.298) > phosphole (0.236) [29],... 

Of the ring systems considered in this section, thiophene, pyrrole, and furan have received the most extensive study and much of this has been of a comparative nature. As can be seen from Table X, these compounds have been compared by nearly all of the criteria by which aromaticity may be assessed. Although there are one or two discrepancies in the order of aromatic character as estimated by these criteria, the general conclusion to be drawn is that aromatic character decreases in the order benzene, thiophene, pyrrole, and furan. This order is also supported from studies of the Faraday effect,163 although the KK index (Section II,E) reverses the position in the order of thiophene and benzene.167... 

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