Substitution, electrophilic electron donor-acceptor

Aromatic compounds have a special place in ground-state chemistry because of their enhanced thermodynamic stability, which is associated with the presence of a closed she of (4n + 2) pi-electrons. The thermal chemistry of benzene and related compounds is dominated by substitution reactions, especially electrophilic substitutions, in which the aromatic system is preserved in the overall process. In the photochemistry of aromatic compounds such thermodynamic factors are of secondary importance the electronically excited state is sufficiently energetic, and sufficiently different in electron distribution and electron donor-acceptor properties, ior pathways to be accessible that lead to products which are not characteristic of ground-state processes. Often these products are thermodynamically unstable (though kinetically stable) with respect to the substrates from which they are formed, or they represent an orientational preference different from the one that predominates thermally. 

Substitution Reactions. Aromatic heterocycHc A/-oxides undergo both electrophilic and nucleophilic substitution because the dipolar N-oxide group is both an electron donor and an electron acceptor, giving rise to the resonance stmctures ... 

In this mechanism, a complexation of the electrophile with the 7t-electron system of the aromatic ring is the first step. This species, called the 7t-complex, m or ms not be involved directly in the substitution mechanism. 7t-Complex formation is, in general, rapidly reversible, and in many cases the equilibrium constant is small. The 7t-complex is a donor-acceptor type complex, with the n electrons of the aromatic ring donating electron density to the electrophile. No position selectivity is associated with the 7t-complex. 

Recently37, the importance of CT complexes in the chemistry of heteroaromatic N-oxides has been investigated in nucleophilic aromatic substitutions. Electron acceptors (tetracyanoethylene and p-benzoquinones) enhance the electrophilic ability of pyridine-N-oxide (and of quinoline-N-oxide) derivatives by forming donor-acceptor complexes which facilitate the reactions of nucleophiles on heteroaromatic substrates. 

Nucleophilic substitution is the reaction of an electron pair donor (the nucleophile, Nu) with an electron pair acceptor (the electrophile). An sp3-hybridized electrophile must have a leaving group (X) in order for the reaction to take place. 

It is agreed that attack of an electrophilic reagent is directed towards the most reactive centers of a core with high electron density. These centers are carbon atoms in the ortho- and /j ra-positions of the benzene substituted if a substituting group is an electron donor, and in the meta-positions if a substituting group is an electron acceptor. 

The parallels observed between CM) solubility and electrophilic substitution products are regular if C6o dissolution in aromatic hydrocarbons is considered as acid-base relationships. According to the theoretical research and experimental results, double bonds of aromatic hydrocarbons with mobile Tt-electrons are Lewis base. Consequently, they react with acids and Lewis acids to form complexes. It has been established that these complexes cannot be to a marked extent electrostatic. It has been found that they are often colored. Complexes with iodine (Lewis acid) give absorption bands at 300 nm in the UV region. These complexes are not true chemical compounds. According to Dewar, all the above facts are due to the formation of Tt-complexcs between an acid or Lewis acid and the entire Ji-electron system of an unsaturated compound which should be considered as Lewis base. Because in these complexes a double bond is an electron donor and Lewis acid is an electron acceptor, they are known as donor-acceptor complexes. The decrease in energy in complexing is conditioned by quantum-mechanical reasons. 

Aromatic substrates are by far the most commonly used substrates in the rapidly expanding area of photoinduced electron transfer [1,2]. This is obviously due to the favourable location of the frontier molecular orbitals in such compounds. The same factor facilitates the formation of electron transfer donor-acceptor (EDA) complexes both in the ground state (these possibly are intermediates in some thermal reactions, e.g. selected electrophilic substitutions), and in the excited state (exciplexes). 

Within the year a wide range of photoreactions in which an aromatic residue undergoes change in substitution has been published. As previously, the diversity of the various processes makes any classification of the reactions unrealistic, and so their order of presentation here is somewhat arbitrary. Aromatic photosubstitution reactions have been reviewed by Parkanyi although the treatment is not extensive, the processes of free radical, electrophilic, and nucleophilic photoinduced substitutions of arenes are well covered.Arene photoreactions initiated by electron transfer with electron donors or acceptors are the subject of a review by Pac and Sakurai. The requirements for the efficient photogeneration of the ion radicals are considered and the synthetic utility of the photoreactions, which include reduction, cyanation, and amination, is discussed. 

A benzene ring, with its six n electrons in a cyclic conjugated system, is a site of electron density. Furthermore, the benzene tt electrons are sterically accessible to attacking reagents because of their location above and below the plane of the ring. Thus, benzene acts as an electron donor (a Lewis base, or nucleophile) in most of its chemistry, and most of its reactions take place with electron acceptors (Lewis acids, or electrophiles). For example, benzene reacts with Br. in the presence of FeBrs as catalyst to yield the substitution product bromobenzene. 

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