Reactions Wheland intermediate

As the o-complexes in these azo coupling reactions are steady-state intermediates (Wheland intermediates, named after Wheland s suggestion in 1942), their stereochemistry cannot be determined directly. Bent structures like that in Figure 12-6 can, however, be isolated in electrophilic substitutions of 1,3,5-triaminobenzene... 

Wheland intermediate 357 see also Azo coupling reaction, o-complex Wolff rearrangement 80f., 281, 284ff. Woodward-Hoffmann rules 129, 361, 396... 

Significantly, the pre-exponential factors decrease with increasing reactivity, and this suggests that the Wheland intermediate is more nearly formed in the transition state, the more reactive the compound. Or, considered another way, the position along the reaction co-ordinate at which a given amount of carbon-halogen bond formation occurs is nearer to the ground state the more reactive the compound. 

The textbook definition of a reactive intermediate is a short-lived, high-energy, highly reactive molecule that determines the outcome of a chemical reaction. Well-known examples are radicals and carbenes such species cannot be isolated in general, but are usually postulated as part of a reaction mechanism, and evidence for their existence is usually indirect. In thermal reactivity, for example, the Wheland intermediate (Scheme 9.1) is a key intermediate in aromatic substitution. 

What we shall be doing in the discussion that follows is comparing the effect that a particular Y would be expected to have on the rate of attack on positions o-/p- and m-, respectively, to the substituent Y. This assumes that the proportions of isomers formed are determined entirely by their relative rates of formation, i.e. that the control is wholly kinetic (cf. p. 163). Strictly we should seek to compare the effect of Y on the different transition states for o-, m- and p-attack, but this is not usually possible. Instead we shall use Wheland intermediates as models for the transition states that immediately precede them in the rate-limiting step, just as we have done already in discussing the individual electrophilic substitution reactions (cf. p. 136). It will be convenient to discuss several different types of Y in turn. 

As described in equation (86), the thermal activation of the EDA complex leads to the ion-radical pair, which subsequently collapses to the Wheland intermediate (in a reaction sequence similar to that described for nitration) (equation 87)... 

However, the Wheland intermediate decays on the early nanosecond time scale to restore the original EDA complex. The observation of the EDA complexes, the ion-radical pair, as well as the Wheland intermediate ArH(NO)+ points to the reaction scheme for thermal nitrosations shown in Scheme 23. 

The formation of the Wheland intermediate from the ion-radical pair as the critical reactive intermediate is common in both nitration and nitrosation processes. However, the contrasting reactivity trend in various nitrosation reactions with NO + (as well as the observation of substantial kinetic deuterium isotope effects) is ascribed to a rate-limiting deprotonation of the reversibly formed Wheland intermediate. In the case of aromatic nitration with NO, deprotonation is fast and occurs with no kinetic (deuterium) isotope effect. However, the nitrosoarenes (unlike their nitro counterparts) are excellent electron donors as judged by their low oxidation potentials as compared to parent arene.246 As a result, nitrosoarenes are also much better Bronsted bases249 than the corresponding nitro derivatives, and this marked distinction readily accounts for the large differentiation in the deprotonation rates of their respective conjugate acids (i.e., Wheland intermediates). 

The observation of second-order kinetics (ku) for the spectral decay of the anisole cation radical in Fig. 15 points to the disappearance of AN + - after its separation from the initially formed triad in (63). Owing to the high yields of nitroanisoles obtained, such a process can be formulated as in Scheme 11 as the bimolecular (homolytic) reaction in (64) that produces the critical Wheland intermediate in aromatic nitration according to Perrin (1977) and Ridd (1991). 

AN+- (Reitstoen and Parker, 1991). In other words, the triad of reactive fragments produced in (63) in the charge-transfer excitation of the EDA complex with A-nitropyridinium ion is susceptible to mutual (pairwise) annihilations leading to the Wheland intermediate W and the nucleophilic adduct N (Scheme 12), so that the observed second-order rate constant ku for the spectral decay of ArH+- in Table 3 actually represents a composite of k2 and k2. A similar competition between the homolytic and nucleophilic reactivity of aromatic cation radicals is observed in the reaction triad (55)... 

There are extensive data for the acid-catalyzed protiodesilylation of XCgELrSiMes in methanol-aqueous perchloric acid or acetic acid-aqueous sulphuric acid at 50°C225. Correlation analysis of the partial rate factors (relative rate constants) by means of the Yukawa-Tsuno equation (Section n.B) finds p = —5.3 and r+ = 0.65. These values are consistent with a relatively low demand for stabilization of the transition state by electron delocalization, i.e. the transition state is early along the reaction coordinate, p-NO2 is highly deactivating with / = 14 x 10 but 0-NO2 is even more deactivating, with / = 6.8 x 10-5. This contrasts with the deactivation order discussed above for nitration and chlorination (Table 6), and may be explained in terms of the early transition state, well removed from the Wheland intermediate. 

Labelling experiments using both 15N and 2H indicate that the rearrangement is intramolecular. Reactions are also acid-catalysed and are believed to occur via the Wheland intermediates 74 and 75. The most likely interpretation is that the rearrangement occurs within the Wheland intermediate by a direct 1,3-shift rather than by consecutive 1,2-shifts, and that the process can be regarded as a typical [l,5]-sigmatropic rearrangement. 

Wheland intermediates, 41,131,151 Wittig reaction, 233 Wittig rearrangement, 293 Wolff rearrangement, 119 Woodward-Hoftmaim rules, 344 Wurtz reaction, 289... 

A review of methods of synthesis of aromatic iodo compounds has appeared offering considerable information of potential value to research chemists wishing to prepare iodoheterocycles (84RCR343). Iodination differs from chlorination and bromination in that a much less reactive electrophile (and a much larger one) is involved. The second step of the reaction is usually at least partially rate-determining. Isotope effects are noted in the iodination of indole [68AC(R) 1435], and the transition state resembles the Wheland intermediate more than in chlorination and bromination. 

Wheland intermediates, a complexes, or arenium ions In the case of benzenoid systems they are cyclohexadienyl cations. It is easily seen that the great stability associated with an aromatic sextet is no longer present in 1, though the ion is stabilized by resonance of its own. The arenium ion is generally a highly reactive intermediate and must stabilize itself by a further reaction, although it has been isolated (see p. 504). 

We consider as dihydro derivatives those rings which contain either one or two 5p3-hybridized carbon atoms. According to this definition, all reactions of the aromatic compounds with electrophiles, nucleophiles or free radicals involve dihydro intermediates. Such reactions with electrophiles afford Wheland intermediates which usually easily lose H+ to re-aromatize. However, nucleophilic substitution (in the absence of a leaving group such as halogen) gives an intermediate which must lose H and such intermediates often possess considerable stability. Radical attack at ring carbon affords another radical which usually reacts further rapidly. In this section we consider the reactions of isolable dihydro compounds it is obvious that much of the discussion on the aromatic heterocycles is concerned with dihydro derivatives as intermediates. 

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