Substituents effect on nucleophilicity

Regarding the substituent effect on reactivity of groups in positions 4 and 5 there is little information in the literature. The reactivity of halogen in position 5 seems to be increased when an amino group is present in position 2. Substitution products are easily obtained using neutral nucleophiles such as thiourea, thiophenols, and mercaptans (52-59). 

A 1-pyridinium substituent has an activating effect on nucleophilic substitution of pyrazines and s-triazines. °... 

It is often difficult to understand at an intuitive level the explanation for the effect of changing substituents on the rate constant ratio kjkp for partitioning of carbocations between nucleophilic addition of solvent and deprotonation. In these cases, insight into the origins of the changes in this rate constant ratio requires a systematic evaluation of substituent effects on the following ... 

The extent to which the effect of changing substituents on the values of ks and kp is the result of a change in the thermodynamic driving force for the reaction (AG°), a change in the relative intrinsic activation barriers A for ks and kp, or whether changes in both of these quantities contribute to the overall substituent effect. This requires at least a crude Marcus analysis of the substituent effect on the rate and equilibrium constants for the nucleophile addition and proton transfer reactions (equation 2).71-72... 

Substituent effects on ks. The replacement of an a-methyl group at the 4-methoxycumyl carbocation CH3-[14+] by an a-ester or a-amide group destabilizes the parent carbocation by 7 kcalmol-1 relative to the neutral azide ion adduct (Scheme 11 and Table 3) and results in 5-fold and 80-fold decreases, respectively, in ks for nucleophilic addition of a solvent 50/50 (v/v) methanol/water.33 These results follow the trend that strongly electron-withdrawing substituents, which destabilize a-substituted 4-methoxybenzyl carbocations relative to neutral adducts to nucleophiles, do not lead to the expected large increases in the rate constants for addition of solvent.28,33,92-95... 

Substituent effects on the solvomercuration reaction differ markedly from those on many other electrophilic additions and these have been explained by assuming that the formation of the intermediate is often rate limiting in electrophilic additions whereas the reaction of the ionic intermediate with nucleophiles is rate limiting in solvomercuration147. In other words, the solvomercuration involves a fast pre-equilibrium formation of an intermediate, followed by rate-limiting attack of the nucleophile on this species. 

Some studies have been made with bases of the type ArO , as this allows study of the effects of variation in basic strength (by introduction of p-substituents in C HsO ) without concomitant change in the steric requirements of the base. With a given base, transfer from a hydroxylic solvent, e.g. HjO or EtOH, to a bipolar aprotic one, e.g. HCONMej (DMF) or MejS —O (DMSO), can have a very pronounced effect as the strength of the base, e.g. OH, OR, is enormously increased thereby. This arises because the base has, in the latter solvents, no envelope of hydrogen-bonded solvent molecules that have to be stripped away before it can act as a base (c/ effect on nucleophilicity in S, 2, p. 81). Such change of solvent may result in a shift of mechanistic pathway from E1 to E2 for some substrate/base pairs. 

A kinetic smdy has been reported of substituent effects on the reactions of 2-phenoxy- and 2-(4-nitrophenoxy)-3-nitro-5-X-thiophenes with benzylamine and with A-methylbenzylamine in benzene as solvent. The intramolecularly hydrogen-bonded intermediate (14) is postulated. Reactions of the 5-unsubstimted thiophenes (X = H) are not base-catalysed, indicating that nucleophilic attack is rate limiting, and the more basic secondary amine shows higher reactivity than the primary... 

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