Salicylic acid leaving group effects

Suitably substituted acetals have been shown to hydrolyse rapidly by a mechanism that involves intramolecular general acid catalysis similar to that proposed for Glu-35 in (34), The largest effects have been found for acetals with the salicylate ion as the leaving group. For example, the spontaneous hydrolysis (35) of 2-methoxymethoxybenzoic acid [73] occurs 300-fold more rapidly than the same reaction of 4-methoxymethoxybenzoic acid [74] and ca. 600-fold more rapidly than the reaction of 2-methoxymethoxybenzoic acid methyl ester [75] (Capon et al, 1969 Dunn and Bruice, 1970). The... 

In another estimate (Kirby and Percy, 1989), the carboxyl group in l-methoxymethoxy-8-naphthoic acid and the dimethylammonium group in the l-methoxymethoxy-8-A, A -dimethylnaphthylammonium ion are estimated to lead to rate increases by intramolecular catalysis of < ca. 900 and 1.9 X 10 compared to the value of ca. 1 x 10 calculated for the intramolecular catalytic effect of the carboxyl group in 2-methoxymethoxybenzoic acid. The salicylate ion remains the most efficient leaving group thus far discovered that can take part in hydrogen-bond catalysis of the hydrolysis of acetals. 

The electronic effects of substituents in the leaving group and the general acid in electronically independent systems such as V-VII have not yet been examined, but there have been concordant attempts to analyse two salicyl systems according to the equation... 

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