Substitution, electrophilic leaving group effects

When a positively charged substituent such as the trimethylam-monio group is anywhere on the ring, but most effectively when it is ortho to the leaving group, it can favorably affect the entropy of activation with anionic nucleophiles and accelerate reaction. A recent example of reagent-substituent interaction is the electrophilic substitution of 2-carboxybiphenyl, nitration (non-polar solvent) of which occurs only at the 2 -position and not the 4 -position and has been postulated to be due to the interaction of the nitronium ion with the carboxyl group. 

In the discussion of electrophilic aromatic substitution (Chapter 11) equal attention was paid to the effect of substrate structure on reactivity (activation or deactivation) and on orientation. The question of orientation was important because in a typical substitution there are four or five hydrogens that could serve as leaving groups. This type of question is much less important for aromatic nucleophilic substitution, since in most cases there is only one potential leaving group in a molecule. Therefore attention is largely focused on the reactivity of one molecule compared with another and not on the comparison of the reactivity of different positions within the same molecule. 

A reaction described as Sn2, abbreviation for substitution, nucleophilic (bimolecular), is a one-step process, and no intermediate is formed. This reaction involves the so-called backside attack of a nucleophile Y on an electrophilic center RX, such that the reaction center the carbon or other atom attacked by the nucleophile) undergoes inversion of stereochemical configuration. In the transition-state nucleophile and exiphile (leaving group) reside at the reaction center. Aside from stereochemical issues, other evidence can be used to identify Sn2 reactions. First, because both nucleophile and substrate are involved in the rate-determining step, the reaction is second order overall rate = k[RX][Y]. Moreover, one can use kinetic isotope effects to distinguish SnI and Sn2 cases (See Kinetic Isotope Effects). 

For substitutions proceeding by mechanism SE2(cyclic), it might be expected that substituent effects would reflect, at least in part, the relative importance of electrophilic attack at the carbon atom undergoing substitution compared with nucleophilic attack at the metal atom in the leaving group, i.e. the position of... 

Since there are no extensive studies on the relative aromaticity of the heterocycles covered in this chapter, the relative order of aromaticity of these systems has been gleaned from disparate studies. A priori, the combined effects of the 7i-electron-deficient five-membered heterocycles annelated to a pyridine nucleus provides a series of bicyclic heterocycles with low reactivity towards electrophiles. In the presence of suitable leaving groups, they are prone to undergo nucleophilic substitution. Since these heterocycles are readily obtained from either appropriately substituted pyridines or five-membered heterocycles, methods for direct functionalization of the parent heterocycles are not frequently studied. Based on the diversity of reactions these heterocycles undergo, it can be inferred that the pyridofuroxans are the least aromatic. 

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