Solvent effects dependence

It is easy to understand the lower reactivity of non-ionic nucleophiles in micelles as compared with water. Micelles have a lower polarity than water and reactions of non-ionic nucleophiles are typically inhibited by solvents of low polarity. Thus, micelles behave as a submicroscopic solvent which has less ability than water, or a polar organic solvent, to interact with a polar transition state. Micellar medium effects on reaction rate, like kinetic solvent effects, depend on differences in free energy between initial and transition states, and a favorable distribution of reactants from water into a micellar pseudophase means that reactants have a lower free energy in micelles than in water. This factor, of itself, will inhibit reaction, but it may be offset by favorable interactions with the transition state and, for bimolecular reactions, by the concentration of reactants into the small volume of the micellar pseudophase. 

In the present context, the solvation of a solvent molecule in its own liquid (i.e., condensation from the vapor, the opposite of evaporation) is of interest (Ben-Naim and Marcus, 1984). The solvation properties of solvents (solvent effects) depend mainly on their polarity/polarizability (accounting also for dispersion interactions), hydrogen-bond donation and acceptance abilities, and cohesive energy density (Marcus, 1993). 

Huebner and Venkataraman69 demonstrated that starch can adsorb iodine from nonaqueous and not necessarily polar solvents, as shown in Table IV. Iodine adsorption by starch in aqueous ethanol increases as the ethanol content increases. Again, the solvent effect depends on the origin of the starch (Table II). The varying effects observed using benzene, ethanol, and chloroform may also be ascribed to the use of starches of different origin... 

In the case of one-step cycloaddition reactions involving an activated complex with a different dipolarity than the reactants, an increase in solvent polarity should enhance the reaction rate (c/ Fig. 5-6a). However, since two-step cycloadditions are consecutive reactions, the solvent effect depends on the relative size of AGf and AGf or of AGfi and AG cf. Fig. 5-6b). If the formation of the zwitterionic intermediate is irreversible, and AG > AG, then the first step is rate-determining in all solvents. Consequently, there is a rate acceleration with increasing solvent polarity. When AG < AG, this behaviour is reversed. If ever AG x AG, then only relatively... 

Other possible solvent effects depend on the heavy-atom effect, which may favor intersystem crossing, and on the viscosity, which may change the rate of diffusion and hence the collisional triplet-triplet energy transfer. These effects have already been mentioned in previous sections. 

A solvent effect on the rate of the rearrangement was also determined (Scheme 11.21). The significance of the solvent effect depended on the position of the methoxy substituent. For the 6-methoxy-substituted allyl vinyl ether 9c, the rearrangement proceeded 68 times faster in methanol-d4 than in benzene-dg. 

The solvent effect depends on the formation of a homogeneous solvent film. This is obtained if the polarity of the solvent matches that of the stationary phase. If this is not the case, band broadening may occur because of droplet formation. This may however be avoided using a retention gap. 

Interestingly, at very low concentrations of micellised Qi(DS)2, the rate of the reaction of 5.1a with 5.2 was observed to be zero-order in 5.1 a and only depending on the concentration of Cu(DS)2 and 5.2. This is akin to the turn-over and saturation kinetics exhibited by enzymes. The acceleration relative to the reaction in organic media in the absence of catalyst, also approaches enzyme-like magnitudes compared to the process in acetonitrile (Chapter 2), Cu(DS)2 micelles accelerate the Diels-Alder reaction between 5.1a and 5.2 by a factor of 1.8710 . This extremely high catalytic efficiency shows how a combination of a beneficial aqueous solvent effect, Lewis-acid catalysis and micellar catalysis can lead to tremendous accelerations. 

There is no one best method for describing solvent effects. The choice of method is dependent on the size of the molecule, type of solvent effects being examined, and required accuracy of results. Many of the continuum solvation methods predict solvation energy more accurately for neutral molecules than for ions. The following is a list of preferred methods, with those resulting in the highest accuracy and the least amount of computational effort appearing first ... 

The equation does not take into account such pertubation factors as steric effects, solvent effects, and ion-pair formation. These factors, however, may be neglected when experiments are carried out in the same solvent at the same temperature and concentration for an homogeneous set of substrates. So, for a given ambident nucleophile the rate ratio kj/kj will depend on A and B, which vary with (a) the attacked electrophilic center, (b) the solvent, and (c) the counterpart cationic species of the anion. The important point in this kind of study is to change only one parameter at a time. This simple rule has not always been followed, and little systematic work has been done in this field (12) stiH widely open after the discovery of the role played by single electron transfer mechanism in ambident reactivity (1689). 

Effects of Surfactants on Solutions. A surfactant changes the properties of a solvent ia which it is dissolved to a much greater extent than is expected from its concentration effects. This marked effect is the result of adsorption at the solution s iaterfaces, orientation of the adsorbed surfactant ions or molecules, micelle formation ia the bulk of the solution, and orientation of the surfactant ions or molecules ia the micelles, which are caused by the amphipathic stmcture of a surfactant molecule. The magnitude of these effects depends to a large extent on the solubiUty balance of the molecule. An efficient surfactant is usually relatively iasoluble as iadividual ions or molecules ia the bulk of a solution, eg, 10 to mol/L. 

A prototype of such phenomena can be seen in even the simplest carboxylic acid, acetic acid (CH3CHOOH). Acidity is determined by the energy or free energy difference between the dissociated and nondissociated forms, whose energetics usually depend significantly on their conformation, e.g., the syn/anti conformational change of the carboxyl-ate group in the compound substantially affects the acid-base equilibrium. The coupled conformation and solvent effects on acidity is treated in Ref. 20. 

Another example is the acidities of a series of carboxylic acids. It is known that the substitution effect on these compounds also depends on the environment. The behavior of the halo-substituted acetic acids is one of the prototype problems for the solvent effect on acidity The order in strength of the haloacetic acids in the gas phase is... 

The magnitude of the anomeric effect depends on the nature of the substituent and decreases with increasing dielectric constant of the medium. The effect of the substituent can be seen by comparing the related 2-chloro- and 2-methoxy-substituted tetrahydropy-rans in entries 2 apd 3. The 2-chloro compound exhibits a significantly greater preference for the axial orientation than the 2-methoxy compound. Entry 3 also provides data relative to the effect of solvent polarity it is observed that the equilibrium constant is larger in carbon tetrachloride (e = 2.2) than in acetonitrile (e = 37.5). 

In addition to monomers and the initiator, an inert liquid (diluent) must be added to the monomer phase to influence the pore structure and swelling behavior of the beaded resin. The monomer diluent is usually a hydrophobic liquid such as toluene, heptane, or pentanol. It is noteworthy that the namre and the percentage of the monomer diluent also influence the rate of polymerization. This may be mainly a concentration or precipitation effect, depending on whether the diluent is a solvent or precipitant for the polymer. For example, when the diluent is a good solvent such as toluene to polystyrene, the polymerizations proceed at a correspondingly slow rate, whereas with a nonsolvent such as pentanol to polystyrene the opposite is true. 

In Section 8.4 we will encounter many empirical measures of solvent polarity. These are empirical in the sense that they are model dependent that is, they are defined in terms of a particular standard reaction or process. Thus, these empirical measures play a role in the study of solvent effects exactly analogous to that of the substituent constants in Chapter 7.)... 

Some of these model-dependent quantities were formulated as measures of a particular phenomenon, such as electron-pair donor ability but many of them have been proposed as empirical measures of solvent polarity, with the goal, or hope, that they may embody a useful blend of solvent properties that quantitatively accounts for the solvent effect on reactivity. This section describes many, although not all, of these empirical measures. Reichardt has reviewed this subject. 

Solvent effects also depend on the ground-state structure of the substrate and on the transition-state structure, as is shown below. Here let us merely note that A-heterocyclic compounds tend to form a hydrogen bond with hydroxylic solvents even in the ground state. Hydrogen-bond formation in this case is a change in the direction of quaternization of the aza group, as demonstrated by spectral evidence. Therefore, it is undoubtedly a rate-enhancing interaction. 

Illuminati and Marino reported an interesting example of the dependence of solvent effects on the position of the reacting center relative to the aza group. The rate constants for the reaction of 2- and 4-chloroquinoline with piperidine were compared in three different solvents, methanol, piperidine, and toluene. These data are reported in Table III. Three main points are apparent from these data (a) the different response of the two substrates to the action of the solvent, (b) the rates for 2-chloroquinoline in the three solvents tend to cluster around the highest reactivity level shown by 4-chloroquinoline in... 

---