Reactions polarizability

How can we rationalize the kinetic trans effect One still popular but only partial explanation was devised by A. Grinberg in the 1930s. It maintains that the transdirecting ability of a ligand is related to its polarizability. As noted in the section on inner-sphere electron-transfer reactions, polarizability can be thought of as the ease with which a dipole moment can be induced in a species. Figure 5.13 illustrates... 

Mineva T, Russo N and Sicilia E 1998 Solvation effects on reaction profiles by the polarizable continuum model coupled with Gaussian density functional method J. Oomp. Ohem. 19 290-9... 

The method for calculating effective polarizabilitie.s wa.s developed primarily to obtain values that reflect the stabilizing effect of polarizability on introduction of a charge into a molecule. That this goal was reached was proven by a variety of correlations of data on chemical reactivity in the gas phase with effective polarizability values. We have intentionally chosen reactions in the gas phase as these show the predominant effect of polarizability, uncorrupted by solvent effects. 

Thus, the values calculated for effective polarizability at the nitrogen atom for a series of 49 amines carrying only alkyl groups was correlated directly with their proton affinities, a reaction that introduces a positive charge on the nitrogen atom by protonation (Figure 7-7) [40. ... 

Fundamental enthalpies of gas-phase reactions such as proton affinities or gas-phase acidities can be correlated with the values of the Inductive and the polarizability effect. 

The knowledge base is essentially two-fold on one hand it consists of a series of procedures for calculating all-important physicochemical effects such as heats of reaction, bond dissociation energies, charge distribution, inductive, resonance, and polarizability effects (.see Section 7.1). The other part of the knowledge base defines the reaction types on which the EROS system can work. 

In their reactions with suitable nucleophiles, such as tt-aromatics or heteroatom donor nucleophiles, the readily polarizable linear acylium ions shift a Tt-electron pair to oxygen, bending the ions and developing an empty p-orbital at the carbocationic center. This enables the reaction with aromatics. The acetylation of benzene can be depicted as... 

There were two schools of thought concerning attempts to extend Hammett s treatment of substituent effects to electrophilic substitutions. It was felt by some that the effects of substituents in electrophilic aromatic substitutions were particularly susceptible to the specific demands of the reagent, and that the variability of the polarizibility effects, or direct resonance interactions, would render impossible any attempted correlation using a two-parameter equation. - o This view was not universally accepted, for Pearson, Baxter and Martin suggested that, by choosing a different model reaction, in which the direct resonance effects of substituents participated, an equation, formally similar to Hammett s equation, might be devised to correlate the rates of electrophilic aromatic and electrophilic side chain reactions. We shall now consider attempts which have been made to do this. 

Chemical Properties. The chemistry of ketenes is dominated by the strongly electrophilic j/)-hybridi2ed carbon atom and alow energy lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). Therefore, ketenes are especially prone to nucleophilic attack at Cl and to [2 + 2] cycloadditions. Less frequent reactions are the so-called ketene iasertion, a special case of addition to substances with strongly polarized or polarizable single bonds (37), and the addition of electrophiles at C2. For a review of addition reactions of ketenes see Reference 8. 

The i5p-titanium(IV) atom is hard, ie, not very polarizable, and can be expected to form its most stable complexes with hard ligands, eg, fluoride, chloride, oxygen, and nitrogen. Soft or relatively polarizable ligands containing second- and third-row elements or multiple bonds should give less stable complexes. The stabihty depends on the coordination number of titanium, on whether the ligand is mono- or polydentate, and on the mechanism of the reaction used to measure stabihty. 

In general, the dissection of substituertt effects need not be limited to resonance and polar components, vdiich are of special prominence in reactions of aromatic compounds.. ny type of substituent interaction with a reaction center could be characterized by a substituent constant characteristic of the particular type of interaction and a reaction parameter indicating the sensitivity of the reaction series to that particular type of interactioa For example, it has been suggested that electronegativity and polarizability can be treated as substituent effects separate from polar and resonance effects. This gives rise to the equation... 

The importance of solvent participation in the borderline mechanisms should be noted. Nucleophilic participation is minimized by high electronegativity, which reduces the Lewis basicity and polarizability of the solvent molecules. Trifluoroacetic acid and perfiuoro alcohols are among the least nucleophilic of the solvents used in solvolysis studies. These solvents are used to define the characteristics of reactions proceeding without nucleophilic solvent participation. Solvent nucleophilicity increases with the electron-donating capacity of the molecule. The order trifluoroacetic acid < trifluoroetha-nol <acetic acid < water < ethanol gives a qualitative indication of the trend in solvent nucleophilicity. More will be said about solvent nucleophilicity in Section 5.5. 

More complete interpretations of Diels-Alder regioselectivity have been developed. MO results can be analyzed from an electrostatic perspective by calculating potentials at the various atoms in the diene and dienophile. These results give a more quantitatively accurate estimate of the substituent effects. Diels-Alder regioselectivity can also be accounted for in terms of HSAB theory (see Section 1.2.3). The expectation would be that the most polarizable (softest) atoms would lead to bond formation and that regioselectivity would reflect the best mateh between the diene and dienophile termini. These ideas have been applied using 3-2IG computations. The results are in agreement with the ortho rule for normal-electron-demand Diels-Alder reactions. ... 

The reactions of bis(trifluoromethyl)-subsatuted hetero 1,3 dienes are predomi nantly LLJMO controlled processes [238] With polar or highly polarizable dieno philes, the tendency to undergo stepwise cycloaddition reactions is considerable Notably these hetero-1,3-dienes react with a,(l unsaturated hetero multiple bond systems across the hetero multiple bond exclusively [243, 246 248] (equation 53)... 

Although cTi estimates by different methods or from different data sets may disagree, it is generally held that the inductive effect of a substituent is essentially independent of the nature of the reaction. It is otherwise with the resonance effect, and Ehrenson et al. have defined four different ctr values for a substituent, depending upon the electronic nature of the reaction site. An alternative approach is to add a third term, sometimes interpreted as a polarizability factor, and to estimate the inductive and resonance contribution statistically with the added parameter the resonance effect appears to be substantially independent of reaction site. " " ... 

Polarizabilities and hyperpolarizabUities Thermochemical properties Reaction pathways... 

A more thorough analysis shows that one should not expect the electric dipole moment to remain constant, because real molecules have polarizability. The polarization of the dielectric in the electric field of the molecule itself gives rise to a reaction field, which tends to enhance the electrical asymmetry. 

The Self-Consistent Reaction Field (SCRF) model considers the solvent as a uniform polarizable medium with a dielectric constant of s, with the solute M placed in a suitable shaped hole in the medium. Creation of a cavity in the medium costs energy, i.e. this is a destabilization, while dispersion interactions between the solvent and solute add a stabilization (this is roughly the van der Waals energy between solvent and solute). The electric charge distribution of M will furthermore polarize the medium (induce charge moments), which in turn acts back on the molecule, thereby producing an electrostatic stabilization. The solvation (free) energy may thus be written as... 

The effects of the nucleophile on aromatic substitution which are pertinent to our main theme of relative reactivity of azine rings and of ring-positions are brought together here. The influence of a nucleophile on relative positional reactivity can arise from its characteristics alone or from its interaction with the ring or with ring-substituents. The effect of different nucleophiles on the rates of reaction of a single substrate has been discussed in terms of polarizability, basicity, alpha effect (lone-pair on the atom adjacent to the nucleophilic atom), and solvation in several reviews and papers. ... 

In contrast to S l reactions, the Sn2 type represent a one-step process. The rate-determining stage, and hence the formation of the new bond, depends on the nucleophilicity of the anion (the nucleo-philicity is essentially a function of the polarizability ). In the Sn2 reaction under discussion, Eq, (7), the nitrogen in CH3—is replaced by the atom of the mesomeric anion which possesses the greatest nucleophilicity. 

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