Reactivity toward Carbocations

Alkylation of 2-methylaminothiazole (204) with ROH in 85% sulfuric acid gives 2-methylimino-3-alkyl-4-thiazoIine (54). 2-Amino-4-rnethyl-thiazoie alkylated with an excess of isopropanol, however, gives 95% of 2-isopropylamino-4-methyl-5-isopropylthiazole (56). The same result is obtained with cyclohexanol (242). These results and those reported in Sections III.l.C and IV.l.E offer interesting new synthetic possibilities in thiazole chemistry. The reactive species in these alkylations is the conjugate acid of 2-aminothiazole. and the diversity of the products obtained suggests that three nucleophilic centers may be operative in this species. 

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It is not intended to extend this discussion of reactions of carbocations with water to consideration of the alcoholic solvents trifluoroethanol (TFE) and hexa-fluoroisopropanol (HFIP), which have been extensively studied and reviewed by McClelland and Steenken.3 However, an important point of interest of these solvents is that their reactivities toward carbocations are greatly reduced compared with water (by up to a factor of 104 in TFE and 108 in HFIP) and that differences in rate constants can be observed between cations which would react indiscriminately at the solvent relaxation limit in water. The following comparisons of rate constants for carbocations with similar pAR values reacting with hexafluoroiso-propanol241,242 reinforces the conclusion that structural variations in the cation lead to changes in intrinsic barrier and, for example, that phenyl substitution is probably associated with such an increase in going from benzyl to benzhydryl (although the benzyl cation itself is not shown). 

There are some difficulties with testing this experimentally. The first is that it is not easy to match the same set of bases to electrophiles of quite different reactivity. A second is that the most readily available equilibrium constants characterizing the nucleophiles are pAias of the conjugate acids, which do not necessarily correlate reactivities toward carbocations. Thirdly, one should avoid reactions influenced by diffusion control. Finally, care has to be taken with steric and solvent effects. 

According to Scheme 51, at - 70° C alkynes are somewhat less reactive toward carbocations than alkenes with analogous substitution, but the reactivity scales for alkynes and alkenes overlap, and it is certainly incorrect to say that alkynes are generally weaker nucleophiles than alkenes. 

In water, N3 is much less reactive in aromatic nucleophilic substitution than expected from its reactivity toward carbocations, that is, its N+value. Ritchie (43) initially developed his N+ scale from nucleophilicities toward preformed carbocations and the scale fits the data for nucleophilicities toward many electrophiles, regardless of their charge. However, in water, and similar hydroxy lie solvents, the nucleophilicity of azide ion, relative to that of other anions, seems to be related to the carbocation-like character of the electrophile. An acyl derivative with its sp2 carbonyl group is somewhat akin to a carbocation stabilized by an alkoxide group, >C=0 <-— >C+-0 , just as a triarylmethyl carbocation is stabilized by electron delocalization into the aryl groups and azide ion is a good nucleophile toward these electrophiles. As compared with anions such as OH- or CN , azide ion, in water, is very reactive toward carbocations and in deacylation but is relatively unreactive toward dinitrohaloarenes (44). 

When we say cycloheptatriene is not aromatic but cycloheptatrienyl cation is, we are not comparing the stability of the two to each other. Cycloheptatriene is a stable hydrocarbon but does not possess the special stability required to be called aromatic. Cycloheptatrienyl cation, although aromatic, is still a carbocation and reasonably reactive toward nucleophiles. Its special stability does not imply a rock-like passivity, but rather a much greater ease of formation than expected on the basis of the Lewis structure drawn for it. A number of observations indicate that cycloheptatrienyl cation is far-more stable than most other car bocations. To emphasize its aromatic nature, chemists often write the structure of cycloheptatrienyl cation in the Robinson circle-in-a-ring style. 

There are at least two other studies of competitive reactions to form the products of solvolysis and elimination reactions that may provide insight into the relationships between carbocation structure and reactivity toward nucleophile addition and deprotonation. 

It is more difficult to interpret micellar effects upon reactions of azide ion. The behavior is normal , in the sense that k /kw 1, for deacylation, an Sn2 reaction, and addition to a carbocation (Table 4) (Cuenca, 1985). But the micellar reaction is much faster for nucleophilic aromatic substitution. Values of k /kw depend upon the substrate and are slightly larger when both N 3 and an inert counterion are present, but the trends are the same. We have no explanation for these results, although there seems to be a relation between the anomalous behavior of the azide ion in micellar reactions of aromatic substrates and its nucleophilicity in water and similar polar, hydroxylic solvents. Azide is a very powerful nucleophile towards carboca-tions, based on Ritchie s N+ scale, but in water it is much less reactive towards 2,4-dinitrohalobenzenes than predicted, whereas the reactivity of other nucleophiles fits the N+ scale (Ritchie and Sawada, 1977). Therefore the large values of k /kw may reflect the fact that azide ion is unusually unreactive in aromatic nucleophilic substitution in water, rather than that it is abnormally reactive in micelles. 

The initiation of the cationic polymerisation of alkenes is examined in detail by means of simple thermodynamic concepts. From a consideration of the kinetic requirements it is shown that the ideal initiator will yield a stable, singly charged anion and a cation with a high reactivity towards the monomer by simple, well defined reactions. It must also be adequately soluble in the solvent of choice and for the experimental method to be used. The calculations are applied to carbocation salts as initiators and a method of predicting their relative solubilities is described. From established and predicted data for a variety of carbocation salts the position of their ion molecule equilibria and their reactivity towards alkenes are examined by means of Born-Haber cycles. This treatment established the relative stabilities of a number of anions and the reason for dityl, but not trityl salts initiating the polymerisation of isobutene. 

We have examined the competing isomerization and solvolysis reactions of 1-4-(methylphenyl)ethyl pentafluorobenzoate with two goals in mind (1) We wanted to use the increased sensitivity of modern analytical methods to extend oxygen-18 scrambling studies to mostly aqueous solutions, where we have obtained extensive data for nucleophilic substitution reactions of 1-phenylethyl derivatives. (2) We were interested in comparing the first-order rate constant for internal return of a carbocation-carboxylate anion pair with the corresponding second-order rate constant for the bimolecular combination of the same carbocation with a carboxylate anion, in order to examine the effect of aqueous solvation of free carboxylate anions on their reactivity toward addition to carbocations. 

The effect of monofluorination on alkene or aromatic reactivity toward electrophiles is more difficult to predict Although a-fluonne stabilizes a carbocation relative to hydrogen, its opposing inductive effect makes olefins and aromatics more electron deficient. Fluorine therefore is activating only for electrophilic reactions with very late transition states where its resonance stabilization is maximized The faster rate of addition of trifluoroacetic acid and sulfuric acid to 2-fluoropropene vs propene is an example [775,116], but cases of such enhanced fluoroalkene reactivity in solution are quite rare [127] By contrast, there are many examples where the ortho-para-dueeting fluorine substituent is also activating in electrophilic aromatic substitutions [128]... 

The electronic description and hybridization of dihalocarbenes (3) are similar to those of carbocations. Not surprisingly, therefore, dihalocarbenes behave as electrophiles in their reactivity towards alkenic substrates and this is discussed in the following sections. 

Because systematic variations in selectivity with reactivity are commonly quite mild for reactions of carbocations with n-nucleophiles, and practically absent for 71-nucleophiles or hydride donors, many nucleophiles can be characterized by constant N and s values. These are valuable in correlating and predicting reactivities toward benzhydryl cations, a wide structural variety of other electrophiles and, to a good approximation, substrates reacting by an Sn2 mechanism. There are certainly failures in extending these relationships to too wide a variation of carbocation and nucleophile structures, but there is a sufficient framework of regular behavior for the influence of additional factors such as steric effects to be rationally examined as deviations from the norm. Thus comparisons between benzhydryl and trityl cations reveal quite different steric effects for reactions with hydroxylic solvents and alkenes, or even with different halide ions... 

The mechanism of the formation of the tetrahydropyranyl ether (see Figure 23.1) is an acid-catalyzed addition of the alcohol to the double bond of the dihydropyran and is quite similar to the acid-catalyzed hydration of an alkene described in Section 11.3. Dihydropyran is especially reactive toward such an addition because the oxygen helps stabilize the carbocation that is initially produced in the reaction. The tetrahydropyranyl ether is inert toward bases and nucleophiles and serves to protect the alcohol from reagents with these properties. Although normal ethers are difficult to cleave, a tetrahydropyranyl ether is actually an acetal, and as such, it is readily cleaved under acidic conditions. (The mechanism for this cleavage is the reverse of that for acetal formation, shown in Figure 18.5 on page 776.)... 

Dihydropyran is very reactive toward addition because the carbocation that is produced is stabilized by resonance involving the electron pair on the adjacent oxygen. 

Reactivity toward SN1 substitution mechanisms follows the stability of carbocations ... 

This reaction is similar to the attack of an alkene on a halogen, resulting in addition of the halogen across the double bond. The pi bond of an enol is more reactive toward halogens, however, because the carbocation that results is stabilized by resonance with the enol —OH group. Loss of the enol proton converts the intermediate to the product, an a-haloketone. We can stop the acid-catalyzed reaction at the monohalo (or dihalo) product because the halogen-substituted enol intermediate is less stable than the unsubstituted enol. Therefore, under acid-catalyzed conditions, each successive halogenation becomes slower. 

An electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction begins in a similar way, but there are a number of differences. One difference is that aromatic rings are less reactive toward electrophiles than alkenes are. For example, Bi in CH2CI2 solution reacts instantly with most alkenes but does not react with benzene at room temperature. For bromination of benzene to take place, a catalyst such as FeBr is needed. The catalyst makes the Br2 molecule more electrophilic by polarizing it to give an FeBi " Br species that reacts as if it were Br. The polarized Br2 molecule then reacts with the nucleophilic benzene ring to yield a nonaromatic carbocation intermediate that is doubly allylic (Section 11.5) and has three resonance forms. 

The 77 bonds in aromatic compounds are also reactive toward electrophiles, although not nearly so much as alkenes. The aromatic ring attacks an electrophile to give an intermediate carbocation. The carbocation then undergoes fragmenta-tive loss of H+ (sometimes another cation) from the same C to which the electrophile added to re-form the aromatic system and give an overall substitution reaction. Thus, the predominant mechanism of substitution at aromatic rings under acidic conditions is electrophilic addition-elimination, sometimes referred to as SpAr. The reaction of toluene and nitric acid is indicative. 

Ketones and aldehydes can also be converted to enol ethers if, after the loss of H2O, the carbocation fragments with loss of H+ to give the alkene. Because enol ethers are extremely reactive toward H+, they are usually isolated only when the double bond is conjugated to an electron-withdrawing group, as in the conversion of /3-diketones to vinylogous esters. 

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