Reaction mechanisms tertiary carbon, aliphatic substitution

The essential features of the mechanism for aliphatic nucleophilic substitution at tertiary carbon were established in studies by Hughes and Ingold." ° However, as chemists probed more deeply, the problems associated with the characterization of borderline reaction mechanisms were encountered, and controversy remains to this day about whether these problems have been entirely solved." What is generally accepted is that ferf-butyl derivatives undergo borderline solvolysis reactions through a ferf-butyl carbocation intermediate that is too unstable to diffuse freely through nucleophilic solvents such as methanol and water. The borderline nature of substitution reactions at tertiary carbon is exemplihed by the following observations. 

Simple tertiary carbocations represent a benchmark against which to compare the reactivity of other a-methyl carbocations. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with complex questions about the mechanism for substitution and elimination reactions at tertiary aliphatic carbon in order to evaluate the rate constant... 

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