Stable carbocations

Many of the uncertainties inherent in Friedel-Crafts catalyst-cocatalyst systems can be removed if stable, well-defined initiators are used. Bawn and co-workers have made use of triphenyl methyl and tropylium salts of the general formula P1 C+X and C7H7X , where X is a stable anion such as CIO4, SbClg, and PFg. 

The reaction of trityl hexafluorophosphate and THF has been shown to proceed without evidence of a termination reaction, and a living cationic system can be obtained. The reaction takes place below room temperature. 

The effect of the counterion is a noticeable factor in the elimination of the termination reaction, and neither SbClg nor any other anion studied has proved as 

It has been reported that when alkyl vinyl ethers are polymerized using an (HI/I2) initiating system, living polymers are produced. The reaction involves the addition 

The living character of the system is thought to arise from the stability of the propagating species, which suppresses any tendency toward termination or chain transfer reactions. 

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Alkene synthesis via alcohol dehydration is complicated by carbocation rearrangements A less stable carbocation can rearrange to a more sta ble one by an alkyl group migration or by a hydride shift opening the possibility for alkene formation from two different carbocations... 

The product of the reaction is derived from the more stable carbocation—in this case it IS a tertiary carbocation that is formed more rapidly than a secondary one... 

Step 1 Protonation of the carbon-carbon double bond in the direction that leads to the more stable carbocation... 

The notion that carbocation formation is rate determining follows from our previous experience and by observing how the reaction rate is affected by the shucture of the aUcene Table 6 2 gives some data showing that alkenes that yield relatively stable carbocations react faster than those that yield less stable carbocations Protonation of ethylene the least reactive aUcene m the table yields a primary carbocation protonation of 2 methylpropene the most reactive m the table yields a tertiary carbocation As we have seen on other occa sions the more stable the carbocation the faster is its rate of formation... 

Both compounds react by an S l mechanism and their relative rates reflect their acti vation energies for carbocation formation Because the allylic chloride is more reactive we reason that it ionizes more rapidly because it forms a more stable carbocation Struc turally the two carbocations differ m that the allylic carbocation has a vinyl substituent on Its positively charged carbon m place of one of the methyl groups of tert butyl cation... 

Protonation at end of diene unit gives a carbocation that IS both secondary and allylic most stable carbocation product is formed from this carbocation... 

Protonation at C 2 gives a carbocation that IS secondary but not allylic less stable carbocation not formed as rapidly... 

C 1 IS more reactive because the intermediate formed by electrophilic attack there IS a relatively stable carbocation A benzene type pattern of bonds is retained m one nng and the positive charge is delocalized by allylic resonance... 

Rearrangement is especially prevalent with primary alkyl halides of the type RCH2CH2X and R2CHCH2X Aluminum chloride induces ionization with rearrangement to give a more stable carbocation Benzylic halides and acyl halides do not rearrange... 

When using a cation source in conjunction with a Friedel-Crafts acid the concentration of growing centers is most often difficult to measure and remains unknown. By the use of stable carbocation salts (for instance trityl and tropyhum hexachloroantimonate) the uncertainty of the concentration of initiating cations is eliminated. Due to the highly reproducible rates, stable carbocation salts have been used in kinetic studies. Their use, however, is limited to cationicaHy fairly reactive monomers (eg, A/-vinylcarbazole, -methoxystyrene, alkyl vinyl ethers) since they are too stable and therefore ineffective initiators of less reactive monomers, such as isobutylene, styrene, and dienes. 

Some fundamental structure-stability relationships can be employed to illustrate the use of resonance concepts. The allyl cation is known to be a particularly stable carbocation. This stability can be understood by recognizing that the positive charge is delocalized between two carbon atoms, as represented by the two equivalent resonance structures. The delocalization imposes a structural requirement. The p orbitals on the three contiguous carbon atoms must all be aligned in the same direction to permit electron delocalization. As a result, there is an energy barrier to rotation about the carbon-carbon... 

The pATr+ values allow for a comparison of the stability of carbocations. The carbocations that can be studied in this way are all relatively stable carbocations. The data in Table 5.1 reveal that electron-releasing substituents on the aryl rings stabilize the carbocation (more positive pA r+) whereas electron-withdrawing groups such as nitro are destabilizing. This is what would be expected from the electron-deficient nature of the carbocation. 

Measurement of (R /R ) can be accomplished by cyclic voltammetry for relatively Stable species and by other methods for less stable cations. The values obtained for AG -range from 83kcal/mol for the aromatic tropylium ion to 130kcal/mol for destabilized betizylic cations. For stable carbocations, the results obtained by this method correlate with cation stabiUty as measured by pKf.+. Some of these data are presented in Table 5.3. 

The kinetics of this reaction are second-order, as would be expected for the formation of a stable carbocation by an Adg2 mechanism. ... 

Very stable carbocation (stabilized by both alkoxy function and aromaticity)... 

NMR spectroscopy is ideal for detecting charged fluorinated intermediates and has been applied to the study of increasingly stable carbocation and carbanion species. Olah [164, 165] has generated stable fluorocarbocations m SbFj/SOjClF at low temperatures The relatively long-lived perfluoro-rerr-butyl anion has been prepared as both the cesium and tris(dimethylamino)sulfonium (TAS) salts by several groups [166, 167, 168], Chemical shifts of fluonnated carbocations and carbanions are listed m Table 23. 

The transition state is closer in energy to the car bocation and more closely resembles it than the alkyloxonium ion. Thus, structural features that stabilize car bocations stabilize transition states leading to them. It follows, therefore, that alkyloxonium ions derived from tertiary alcohols have a lower energy of activation for dissociation and are converted to their- corresponding carbocations faster than those derived from secondary and primar y alcohols. Simply put more stable carbocations are formed faster than less stable ones. Figure 4.17 expresses this principle via a potential energy diagran. 

The regioselectivity of addition of HBr to alkenes under nonnal (electrophilic addition) conditions is controlled by the tendency of a proton to add to the double bond so as to produce the more stable carbocation. Under free-radical conditions the regioselectivity is governed by addition of a bromine atom to give the more stable alkyl radical. 

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