Solvent Ionizing Power for Sulphonates

The possibility that internal return from a contact ion pair might reduce titrimetric rate constants was considered by Fainberg and 

Winstein (1957c). They argued that during solvolysis of neophyl substrates [46, X = Cl, Br] internal return from the proposed phenonium ion-pair intermediate [47] would yield the tertiary derivative [48] (Fig. 13) and this would solvolyse rapidly. Thus, the titrimetric rate constants should correspond to the ionization rate constant k j (Fig. 2). Later neophyl tosylate [46, X = OTs] and its p-methoxy derivative were used (Smith et al., 1961 Diaz et al., 1968b Yamataka et al., 1973), and recently Schadt et al. (1976) defined as a scale of solvent ionizing power for tosylates, designated F2-AdOTs or Yqt, using eqn (5) but based on 2-adamantyl tosylate [6] instead of t-butyl chloride. A correlation of the rates of solvolysis of neophyl tosylate with F0 Xs (Fig. 14) is satisfactory (correlation coefficient 

0 993) and a similar good correlation for l-bicyclo[2,2,2] octyl tosylate [49] (Fig. 15) has a correlation coefficient of 0 999 (Morten, 1975). Remarkably, the latter correlation is very close to unit slope (1 04 0 02). Of particular importance in both correlations is the absence of significant dispersion into solvent types frequently observed using standard Y values (e.g. Fig. 12). 

Consequently there appears to be a sound empirical basis for the use of the OTs scale of solvent ionizing power. Its use should be restricted to sulphonates, however, because of the differential effects of electrophilic solvation in acidic solvents (see Section 4). The importance of these effects can be seen by comparing the Y and Iqxs values for carboxylic acids (Table 5) it appears that, relative to 80% ethanol/water, a carboxylic acid ionizes a tosylate about ten times more rapidly than a chloride. 

Other evidence to support the selection of 2-adamantyl tosylate as model compound has been discussed in Section 2 (p. 8), and the main conclusion can be summarized as follows. Independent evidence and the results in Fig. 15 firmly establish that nucleophilic solvent assistance cannot be appreciable for solvolyses of 2-adamantyl tosylate, since its response to solvents of widely varying nucleophilicities is almost exactly the same as 1-bicyclo [2,2,2] octyl tosylate [49] for which rearside attack is impossible if solvolyses of 2-adamantyl tosylate are anchimerically assisted, the extent of anchimeric assistance does not appear to be dependent on solvent (cf. Pritt and Whiting, 1975). In addition to these conclusions, the results in Fig. 14 suggest that internal return from intermediate contact ion pairs does not occur to a detectable extent for solvolyses of 2-adamantyl tosylate (see also Bentley and Schleyer, 1976). 

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