Rearrangement, rate-limiting

We mention Williams work briefly here because it may also explain Blangey s observations strongly basic primary amines unequivocally form 7V-nitrosoanilinium ions in strongly acidic media. In contrast to the rate-limiting deprotonations of the less basic aromatic and heteroaromatic nitrosoamine cations discussed in this section, the TV-nitroso cation of a strongly basic amine deprotonates extremely slowly. Therefore, the nitroso rearrangement, the Fischer-Hepp reaction, competes effectively with the 7V-deprotonation. 

Equation (17) pertains to the situations described in Figs. 2 and 3, in which the carbonylation step k —or in the reverse direction, the de-carbonylation step k-z—is rate-limiting. It should be remarked that in the case of Fig. 3 the rearrangement step k might become rate-limiting if the reaction were carried out at a very high CO pressure, that is, the condition for (18) rather than for (17) would then be fulfilled. 

Regarding the first problem, the most elemental treatment consists of focusing on a few points on the gas-phase potential energy hypersurface, namely, the reactants, transition state structures and products. As an example, we will mention the work [35,36] that was done on the Meyer-Schuster reaction, an acid catalyzed rearrangement of a-acetylenic secondary and tertiary alcohols to a.p-unsaturatcd carbonyl compounds, in which the solvent plays an active role. This reaction comprises four steps. In the first, a rapid protonation takes place at the hydroxyl group. The second, which is the rate limiting step, is an apparent 1, 3-shift of the protonated hydroxyl group from carbon Ci to carbon C3. The third step is presumably a rapid allenol deprotonation, followed by a keto-enol equilibrium that leads to the final product. 

Slow aggregation, called Rate Limited Aggregation (RLA), species have a lower sticking probability. Some are able to rearrange and densify the floe, D 2.0-2.2. 

Rearrangement to the diphenyline product 3, formally a forbidden [3,5] shift, must take place by a different mechanism in parallel to 2 formation. Previous mechanistic suggestions have attempted to explain the formation of both products within the same mechanistic framework. It is now apparent that 3 is formed by rate-limiting N-N bond fission to give an intermediate from which the product is formed. The nature of this intermediate is not yet known, but it has been suggested16 that it could be a zr-complex. 

The work of Coombes and coworkers20 on the formation of the 4-methyl-4-nitro intermediate has already been discussed above. Here the solvent was aqueous sulphuric acid with acid concentration ranging from 55% to 90%. The final product, 4-methyl-2-nitrophenol, was formed by the expected two routes about 40% via the ipso-intermediate and 60% directly. Their kinetic studies enabled the acidity dependence of the ipso-rearrangement to be examined they argued that this dependence demonstrated that the rate-limiting stage of the conversion involved the protonated /pso-intermediate (43). They... 

The conversion of the kinetic data into AAG -values (Table 4.2) assumes that the rate-limiting step is the same in wild type and variant. It also assumes that the mutation does not cause structural rearrangements. Only in very few cases have the kinetic studies on the transition state stabilization by the oxyanion hole contributions been complemented by protein crystallographic studies of the liganded wild-type and mutated variant. One such example, discussed in more detail below, concerns the studies on the Ser42Ala variant of cutinase, in which case it was found that the structural changes are minimal [19]. 

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