Steric effects nature

A rate factor approach to chemical reactivity assumes that structural effects influence rate constants in an additive way. While this assumption enjoys considerable success, an obvious failure arises when dealing with steric effects. Naturally, agreement between calculated and observed results is best when the reaction conditions applied to a new substrate are similar to those used on model compounds to obtain rate factors. 

Monosubstituted acetylene polymers with relatively small steric effect, naturally, show properties intermediate between those of the two extremes in Table 25. For example, poly(l-hexyne) and poly(phenylacetylene) are dark brown to yellow, more or less sensitive to air, and somewhat paramagnetic. In the following discussion, individual properties of not these polyacetylenes but those with large steric effect will be mostly described. 

If the medium is sufficiently basic to generate the arabident anion 31. mixtures of products resulting from N-nng and N-exocyclic reactivity are observed. Here again steric effects can preferentially orient the whole reaction toward one of the two nitrogens. A general study clearly delineating the rules of behavior for 31 accordine to the nature of R. the... 

The reactivity of the individual O—P insecticides is determined by the magnitude of the electrophilic character of the phosphoms atom, the strength of the bond P—X, and the steric effects of the substituents. The electrophilic nature of the central P atom is determined by the relative positions of the shared electron pairs, between atoms bonded to phosphoms, and is a function of the relative electronegativities of the two atoms in each bond (P, 2.1 O, 3.5 S, 2.5 N, 3.0 and C, 2.5). Therefore, it is clear that in phosphate esters (P=0) the phosphoms is much more electrophilic and these are more reactive than phosphorothioate esters (P=S). The latter generally are so stable as to be relatively unreactive with AChE. They owe their biological activity to m vivo oxidation by a microsomal oxidase, a reaction that takes place in insect gut and fat body tissues and in the mammalian Hver. A typical example is the oxidation of parathion (61) to paraoxon [311-45-5] (110). 

The importance of both electronic and steric effects is clear in cycloadditions as in cross-oxidations. One example is a heterocycHc modification leading to the thermodynamically less stable natural form of juglone derivatives such as ventiloquinones JT [124917-64-2] (84) and I [124917-65-3] (85) (83). The yields are 97% (84) from 6-chloro-2,3-dimethoxy-l,4-ben2oquinone [30839-34-0] and 100% (85) upon hydrolysis. 

Pyrazole and its C-methyl derivatives acting as 2-monohaptopyrazoles in a neutral or slightly acidic medium give M(HPz) X, complexes where M is a transition metal, X is the counterion and m is the valence of the transition metal, usually 2. The number of pyrazole molecules, n, for a given metal depends on the nature of X and on the steric effects of the pyrazole substituents, especially those at position 3. Complexes of 3(5)-methylpyrazole with salts of a number of divalent metals involve the less hindered tautomer, the 5-methylpyrazole (209). With pyrazole and 4- or 5-monosubstituted pyrazoles M(HPz)6X2... 

The substituent effects in aromatic electrophilic substitution are dominated by resonance effects. In other systems, stereoelectronic effects or steric effects might be more important. Whatever the nature of the substituent effects, the Hammond postulate insists diat structural discussion of transition states in terms of reactants, intermediates, or products is valid only when their structures and energies are similar. 

We will discuss shortly the most important structure-reactivity features of the E2, El, and Elcb mechanisms. The variable transition state theoiy allows discussion of reactions proceeding through transition states of intermediate character in terms of the limiting mechanistic types. The most important structural features to be considered in such a discussion are (1) the nature of the leaving group, (2) the nature of the base, (3) electronic and steric effects of substituents in the reactant molecule, and (4) solvent effects. 

The ortho effect may consist of several components. The normal electronic effect may receive contributions from inductive and resonance factors, just as with tneta and para substituents. There may also be a proximity or field electronic effect that operates directly between the substituent and the reaction site. In addition there may exist a true steric effect, as a result of the space-filling nature of the substituent (itself ultimately an electronic effect). Finally it is possible that non-covalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding or charge transfer, may take place. The role of the solvent in both the initial state and the transition state may be different in the presence of ortho substitution. Many attempts have been made to separate these several effects. For example. Farthing and Nam defined an ortho substituent constant in the usual way by = log (K/K ) for the ionization of benzoic acids, postulating that includes both electronic and steric components. They assumed that the electronic portion of the ortho effect is identical to the para effect, writing CTe = o-p, and that the steric component is equal to the difference between the total effect and the electronic effect, or cts = cr — cte- They then used a multiple LFER to correlate data for orrAo-substituted reactants. 

Because of the frequent mutual interference of electronic, inductive, and steric effects, and because of the influence of ring strain, the carbonyl stretching frequency is naturally not an absolute criterion for the methylation course. The heterocyclic systems in question are too diverse for this to hold. Careful inspection of Table I discloses certain deviations from the relationships mentioned. These deviations will now be discussed. 

The general features of the monensin synthesis conducted by Kishi et al. are outlined, in retrosynthetic format, in Scheme 1. It was decided to delay the construction of monensin s spiroketal substructure, the l,6-dioxaspiro[4.5]decane framework, to a very late stage in the synthesis (see Scheme 1). It seemed reasonable to expect that exposure of the keto triol resulting from the hydrogen-olysis of the C-5 benzyl ether in 2 to an acidic medium could, under equilibrating conditions, result in the formation of the spiroketal in 1. This proposition was based on the reasonable assumption that the configuration of the spiroketal carbon (C-9) in monensin corresponds to the thermodynamically most stable form, as is the case for most spiroketal-containing natural products.19 Spiro-ketals found in nature usually adopt conformations in which steric effects are minimized and anomeric effects are maximized. 

An important feature of the Stille reaction is that it is not particularly susceptible to steric effects. Indeed, vinyl triflate 120, despite its somewhat hindered nature, couples smoothly with the indicated vinylstannane in the presence of a catalytic amount of Pd(PPh3)4 and LiCl to give 1,3-diene 122 in 90% yield (see Scheme 32).49a As expected, vinyl triflate 119 is converted to the regioisomeric 1,3-diene 121 under identical conditions. 

Complexes of O-donors are relatively rare, explicable by the soft nature of the divalent ions. A telling indication is that sulphoxide ligands will only bind through O if steric effects make S-bonding impractical. The most important complexes are diketonates and carboxylates (for the aqua ions see section 3.5). 

Numerous literature references104 attest to the fact that the naturally occurring spiroketals and many synthetic products adopt conformations in which the anomeric effects are maximized and the steric effects are minimized. However, in some such compounds, the steric effects of bulky substituents and diaxial interactions can result in a conformation in which the anomeric effect cannot operate. 

Both of the above approaches rely in most cases on classical ideas that picture the atoms and molecules in the system interacting via ordinary electrical and steric forces. These interactions between the species are expressed in terms of force fields, i.e., sets of mathematical equations that describe the attractions and repulsions between the atomic charges, the forces needed to stretch or compress the chemical bonds, repulsions between the atoms due to then-excluded volumes, etc. A variety of different force fields have been developed by different workers to represent the forces present in chemical systems, and although these differ in their details, they generally tend to include the same aspects of the molecular interactions. Some are directed more specifically at the forces important for, say, protein structure, while others focus more on features important in liquids. With time more and more sophisticated force fields are continually being introduced to include additional aspects of the interatomic interactions, e.g., polarizations of the atomic charge clouds and more subtle effects associated with quantum chemical effects. Naturally, inclusion of these additional features requires greater computational effort, so that a compromise between sophistication and practicality is required. 

The success of such reactions depends on the intramolecular hydrogen transfer being faster than hydrogen atom abstraction from the stannane reagent. In the example shown, hydrogen transfer is favored by the thermodynamic driving force of radical stabilization, by the intramolecular nature of the hydrogen transfer, and by the steric effects of the central quaternary carbon. This substitution pattern often favors intramolecular reactions as a result of conformational effects. 

It can be seen that a large variety of 9-substituted anthracenes dimerize upon irradiation. There are a few, however, from which no dimers have yet been isolated. Although at this point it is difficult to say what determines whether a particular derivative will dimerize or not, it would appear from the above lists that the controlling factor cannot be steric in nature since the relatively crowded 9-cyclohexyl anthracene dimerizes whereas 9-phenyl-anthracene does not. This result would tend to indicate that electronic effects of the substituents may influence the dimerization. 

The literature on basic- and acid-catalyzed alkylation of phenol and of its derivatives is wide [1,2], since this class of reactions finds industrial application for the synthesis of several intermediates 2-methylphenol as a monomer for the synthesis of epoxy cresol novolac resin 2,5-dimethylphenol as an intermediate for the synthesis of antiseptics, dyes and antioxidants 2,6-dimethylphenol used for the manufacture of polyphenylenoxide resins, and 2,3,6-trimethylphenol as a starting material for the synthesis of vitamin E. The nature of the products obtained in phenol methylation is affected by the surface characteristics of the catalyst, since catalysts having acid features address the electrophilic substitution in the ortho and para positions with respect to the hydroxy group (steric effects in confined environments may however affect the ortho/para-C-alkylation ratio), while with basic catalysts the ortho positions become the... 

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