Substituent effects, inductive Steric

The quatemization reaction of the thiazole nitrogen has been used to evaluate the steric effect of substituents in heterocyclic compounds since thiazole and its alkyl derivatives are good models for such study. In fact, substituents in the 2- and 4-positions of the ring only interact through their steric effects (inductive and resonance effects were constant in the studied series). The thiazole ring is planar, and the geometries of the ground and transition states are identical. Finally, the 2- and 4-positions have been shown to be different (259. 260). 

Arrhenius parameters for nitration of 4-aikylphenyltrimethyiammonium ions in nitric acid-sulphuric acid mixtures (Table 12). It was argued that the observed Baker-Nathan order of alkyl substituent effect was, in fact, the result of a steric effect superimposed upon an inductive order. However, a number of assumptions were involved in this deduction, and these render the conclusion less reliable than one would like it would be useful to have the thermodynamic parameters for nitration of the methyl substituted compound in particular, in order to compare with the data for the /-butyl compound, though experimental difficulties may preclude this. It would not be surprising if a true Baker-Nathan order were observed because it is observed for all other electrophilic substitutions in this medium1. 

The most frequently encountered hydrolysis reaction in drug instability is that of the ester, but curtain esters can be stable for many years when properly formulated. Substituents can have a dramatic effect on reaction rates. For example, the tert-butyl ester of acetic acid is about 120 times more stable than the methyl ester, which, in turn, is approximately 60 times more stable than the vinyl analog [16]. Structure-reactivity relationships are dealt with in the discipline of physical organic chemistry. Substituent groups may exert electronic (inductive and resonance), steric, and/or hydrogen-bonding effects that can drastically affect the stability of compounds. A detailed treatment of substituent effects can be found in a review by Hansch et al. [17] and in the classical reference text by Hammett [18]. 

The mechanisms of substituent effects are numerous23 the most prominent being inductive, mesomeric, neighbor anisotropy, ring-current, electric-field and steric effects, as well as van der Waals compression. 

In this work the rates of alkaline hydrolysis in 70% dioxan-water and those of acid-catalyzed ester formation in methanol were compared for the cis (31a) and trans (31b) substituted compounds. This was expected to isolate the steric effects of the cis substituents, since inductive and resonance effects should be similar in the cis and the trans compounds. The results are summarized in Table 34, and show the trend already observed for orf/m-substituted... 

Taft (1956) has carried out a quantitative separation of the effect of substituents into inductive, conjugation, and steric effects. 

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