Solvent reorganization nucleophilic addition

The observed value of kjkp for partitioning of the simple tertiary carbocation [1+] is smaller than that expected if the nucleophilic addition of solvent were to occur by rate-determining chemical bond formation. This is probably because solvent addition is limited by the rate constant for reorganization of the solvation shell that surrounds the carbocation. 

Much is known about the lifetimes of carbocation intermediates of solvolysis, and these data have proven critical in the design of experiments to estimate absolute rate constants for reorganization of ion pairs. Consider reorganization of an ion-pair reaction intermediate that exchanges the positions of the nucleophilic atoms of the leaving group (, Scheme 9) and that occurs in competition with diffusional separation to free ions (k-d) which is much faster than addition of solvent to the ion pair. Ion-pair separation is irreversible and will result in formation of solvolysis reaction products s ). Reorganization of the ion pair will result in formation of isomerization reaction product and the yield of this reaction product will provide a measure of the relative rate constant... 

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