Rate-Determining Steps of Reactions

The details of proton-transfer processes can also be probed by examination of solvent isotope effects, for example, by comparing the rates of a reaction in H2O versus D2O. The solvent isotope effect can be either normal or inverse, depending on the nature of the proton-transfer process in the reaction mechanism. D3O+ is a stronger acid than H3O+. As a result, reactants in D2O solution are somewhat more extensively protonated than in H2O at identical acid concentration. A reaction that involves a rapid equilibrium protonation will proceed faster in D2O than in H2O because of the higher concentration of the protonated reactant. On the other hand, if proton transfer is part of the rate-determining step, the reaction will be faster in H2O than in D2O because of the normal primary kinetic isotope effect of the type considered in Section 4.5. 

The Pictet-Spengler reaction is an acid-catalyzed intramolecular cyclization of an intermediate imine of 2-arylethylamine, formed by condensation with a carbonyl compound, to give 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives. This condensation reaction has been studied under acid-catalyzed and superacid-catalyzed conditions, and a linear correlation had been found between the rate of the reaction and the acidity of the reaction medium. Substrates with electron-donating substituents on the aromatic ring cyclize faster than the corresponding unsubstituted compounds, supporting the idea that the cyclization process is involved in the rate-determining step of the reaction. 

In hydroxyUc solvents, the reaction with aniline follows a bi-molecular course but is complicated by competing solvolysis. This is a striking result when compared with the behavior of picryl chloride, which is much more selective with regard to the same reagents (aniline and alcohol), and has been interpreted to mean that bond-breaking has made appreciable progress in the rate-determining step of the reaction of phosphonitrilic chloride. Furthermore, the same indication is obtained from the fact that in the reactions of the halides, the fluorine chlorine ratios are less than one. ... 

A distinction between these four possibilities can be made on the basis of the kinetic isotope effect. There is no isotope effect in the arylation of deuterated or tritiated benzenoid compounds with dibenzoyl peroxide, thereby ruling out mechanisms in which a C5— bond is broken in the rate-determining step of the substitution. Paths (ii) and (iii,b) are therefore eliminated. In path (i) the first reaction, Eq. (6), is almost certain to be rate-determining, for the union of tw o radicals, Eq. (7), is a process of very low activation energy, while the abstraction in which a C—H bond is broken would require activation. More significant evidence against this path is that dimers, Arz, should result from it, yet they are never isolated. For instance, no 4,4 -dinitrobiphenyl is formed during the phenylation of... 

Water plays a crucial role in the inclusion process. Although cyclodextrin does form inclusion complexes in such nonaqueous solvents as dimethyl sulfoxide, the binding is very weak compared with that in water 13 Recently, it has been shown that the thermodynamic stabilities of some inclusion complexes in aqueous solutions decrease markedly with the addition of dimethyl sulfoxide to the solutions 14,15>. Kinetic parameters determined for inclusion reactions also revealed that the rate-determining step of the reactions is the breakdown of the water structure around a substrate molecule and/or within the cyclodextrin cavity 16,17). 

Even though the absolute rate constant for reactions between propagating species may be determined largely by diffusion, this does not mean that there is no specificity in the termination process or that the activation energies for combination and disproportionation are zero or the same. It simply means that this chemistry is not involved in the rate-determining step of the termination process. 

The outstanding problem is to decide how much, if any, association exists between N02 and X" in the generally rate-determining step of the reaction. Kinetic studies tend to indicate the presence of different electrophiles under different conditions whereas the derived partial rate factors are closely similar and therefore indicate one electrophile common to most, if not all, nitrating agents. The more electron-attracting is X , the more easily is N02 displaced from it and hence a reactivity sequence should be... 

Studies of the relative rates of the zinc chloride-catalysed bromination of alkyl-and halogeno-benzenes in nitromethane at 25 °C have lead to the suggestion that the rate-determining step of the reaction is formation of Ji-complex, since low substrate selectivity was found to be coupled with high (i.e. normal) positional selectivity323. Under some conditions (column 1 in Table 75) the low selectivity... 

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