Sulfur-substituted carbocation

The mechanism of the Pummerer rearrangement consists of four steps 1) acylation of the sulfoxide oxygen to form an acyloxysulfonium salt 2) loss of a proton from the a-carbon to afford an acylsulfonium ylide 3) cleavage of the sulfur-oxygen bond to give sulfur-substituted carbocation (RDS) and 4) capture of the nucleophile by the carbocation. 

To be able to prepare and study these elusive species in stable form, acids billions of times stronger than concentrated sulfuric acid were needed (so called superacids). Some substituted carbocations, however, are remarkably stable and are even present in nature. You may be surprised to learn that the fine red wine we drank tonight contained carbocations which are responsible for the red color of this natural 12% or so alcoholic solution. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. 

Examples of the behavior of other substituted vinyl substrates upon exposure to the action of trifluoroacetic acid and triethylsilane are known. For example, -butyl vinyl ether, when reacted at 50° for 10 hours, gives -butyl ethyl ether in 80% yield (Eq. 65).234 In contrast, -butyl vinyl thioether gives only a 5% yield of n-butyl ethyl sulfide product after 2 hours and 15% after 20 horns of reaction.234 It is suggested that this low reactvity is the result of the formation of a very stable sulfur-bridged carbocation intermediate that resists attack by the organosilicon hydride (Eq. 66). 

A new method for the synthesis of 2-substituted, as well as 2,4- and 2,5-disubstituted, cyclopentanones in 53-93% yield has been reported.81 For example, the Lewis acid catalyzed transformation of l-propanoyl-l-(4-tolylsulfanyl)cyclobutane gave 2-ethyl-2-(4-tolylsulf-anyl)cyclopentanone (1) in 93 % yield. The formation of the cyclopentanone is best explained by a mechanism which involves initial coordination of aluminum trichloride to the carbonyl oxygen, followed by ring expansion to form the sulfur-stabilized carbocation. Finally, migration of the ethyl group to the carbocation center regenerates concomitantly the carbonyl function.81... 

A controversial issue of heteroatom-stabilized cations is the relative stabilization of carbocationic centers adjacent to oxygen and sulfur.541 In solution studies, a-O-substituted carbocations were found to be stabilized more than a-iS -substituted carbocations.677 Gas-phase studies reached an opposite conclusion,678 679 whereas subsequent theoretical studies (high-level ab initio methods) supported the findings of solution chemistry. Recent results, namely, basicities of various vinylic compounds (365-370) measured in the gas phase also support this conclusion.680 Although monoheteroatom-substituted compounds 365 and 366 were found to have similar proton affinities, an additional a-methyl group increased the stability of the carbenium ion derived from 367 more than that of the sulfur counterpart 368. Even larger differences were found between proton affinities of the bis-heteroatom-substituted compounds 369 and 370. 

Aromatic rings can be nitrated by reaction with a mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. The electrophile is the nitronium ion, N02+, which is generated from HNO3 by protonation and loss of water. The nitronium ion reacts with benzene to yield a carbocation intermediate, and loss of H+ from this intermediate gives the neutral substitution product, nitrobenzene (Figure 16.4). 

Similarly reaction of the iV-methallyl-substituted thioamide 294 with aqueous hydrobromic acid leads to intramolecular interception of the tertiary carbocation via the sulfur atom of the thiourea to give 295 (Equation 81) <2005RCB1744>. 

The results of ab initio calculations provide evidence that Me2NC(S)-[14+] is stabilized by resonance electron donation from the a-thioamide group (A, Scheme 12) and by covalent bridging of sulfur to the benzylic carbon (B, Scheme 12).96 Direct resonance stabilization of the carbocation will increase the barrier to the nucleophile addition reaction, because of the requirement for the relatively large fractional loss of the stabilizing resonance interaction (A, Scheme 12) at the transition state for nucleophile addition to a-substituted benzyl carbocations.8,13,28 91-93 If the solvent adds exclusively to an open carbocation that is the minor species in a mixture of open and closed ions, then... 

The results of studies of the acid-catalyzed hydration of oxygen-, sulfur-, seleno-and nitrogen-substituted alkenes and the relevance of this work to partitioning of the corresponding carbocation intermediates (Chart 1) between deprotonation and nucleophile addition was reviewed in 1986.70. We present here a brief summary of this earlier review, along with additional discussion of recent literature. 

We suggest that the substitution of an a-oxygen by a a-sulfur or a-selenium at an oxocarbenium ion has several effects on the reactivity of the carbocation, each of which contributes to the large decrease in value of k%jkp for partitioning of the carbocation ... 

The substitution of an a-oxygen by an a-sulfur or an a-selenium results in a decrease in ks/kp for partitioning of oxocarbenium ions between addition of solvent and deprotonation. The largest effect is observed for the a-selenium substitution. These changes are probably the result of several different effects on carbocation reactivity, each of which contributes to the observed substituent effect on kjkp. 

Since these methoxylated and acetoxylated sulfides have an acetal structure, it is expected that Lewis acid catalyzed demethoxylation should generate a carbocation intermediate which is stabilized by the neighboring sulfur atom. In fact, nucleophilic substitution with arenes has been successfully achieved as shown in Scheme 6.7 [43], This procedure is useful for the preparation of trifluoroethyl aromatics. As already mentioned, generation of carbocations bearing an a-trifluoromethyl group is difficult due to the strong electron-withdrawing effect. Therefore, this carbon-carbon bond formation reaction is remarkable from both mechanistic and synthetic aspects. 

CF3 compounds like (23) in which the sulfur substituent stabilizes the carbocation, /3-allylation and -cyanation is possible. Scheme 10. Normally, / -substitution of CF3 compounds is problematic because of competing elimination [34]. 

Phenol-formaldehyde prepolymers, referred to as novolacs, are obtained by using a ratio of formaldehyde to phenol of 0.75-0.85 1, sometimes lower. Since the reaction system is starved for formaldehyde, only low molecular weight polymers can be formed and there is a much narrower range of products compared to the resoles. The reaction is accomplished by heating for 2 1 h at or near reflux temperature in the presence of an acid catalyst. Oxalic and sulfuric acids are used in amounts of 1-2 and <1 part, respectively, per 100 parts phenol. The polymerization involves electrophilic aromatic substitution, first by hydroxymethyl carboca-tion and subsequently by benzyl carbocation—each formed by protonation of OH followed by loss of water. There is much less benzyl ether bridging between benzene rings compared to the resole prepolymers. 

A related scheme starts with the conversion of the exocyclic amino group in 2-methylaminoimidazohne to a good leaving group by conversion to its nitramine derivative (5-2). Reaction of that intermediate with phenylethanolamine (5-1) leads to the displacement of the nitramine by the primary amine on the reagent and the formation of the substitution product (5-3). This is then cyclized with concentrated sulfuric acid to give an imidazoimidazole, probably via the benzylic carbocation. There is thus obtained imafen (5-4) [5], a compound described as an antidepressant. 

The effect of monofluorination on alkene or aromatic reactivity toward electrophiles is more difficult to predict Although a-fluonne stabilizes a carbocation relative to hydrogen, its opposing inductive effect makes olefins and aromatics more electron deficient. Fluorine therefore is activating only for electrophilic reactions with very late transition states where its resonance stabilization is maximized The faster rate of addition of trifluoroacetic acid and sulfuric acid to 2-fluoropropene vs propene is an example [775,116], but cases of such enhanced fluoroalkene reactivity in solution are quite rare [127] By contrast, there are many examples where the ortho-para-dueeting fluorine substituent is also activating in electrophilic aromatic substitutions [128]... 

Advantage has been taken of the ready accessibility of eleven para-substituted trityl and 9-phenylxanthyl cations, radicals, and carbanions in a study of the quantitative relationship between their stabilities under similar conditions.2 Hammett-type correlations have also been demonstrated for each series. Heats and free energies of deprotonation and the first and second oxidation potentials of the resulting carbanions were compared. The first and second reduction potentials and the p/CR values of the cations in aqueous sulfuric acid were compared, as were calorimetric heats of hydride transfer from cyanoborohydride ion. For radicals, consistent results were obtained for bond dissociation energies derived, alternatively, from the carbocation and its reduction potential or from the carbanion and its oxidation potential. 

In practice, extrapolations of p fR in water have usually used the older acidity function based method, for example, for trityl,61,62 benzhydryl,63 or cyclopropenyl (6) cations.66,67 These older data include studies of protonation of aromatic molecules, such as pKSi = —1.70 for the azulenium ion 3,59 and Kresge s extensive measurements of the protonation of hydroxy- and methoxy-substituted benzenes.68 Some of these data have been replotted as p fR or pKa against XQ with only minor changes in values.25,52 However, for more unstable carbocations such as 2,4,6-trimethylbenzyl, there is a long extrapolation from concentrated acid solutions to water and the discrepancy is greater use of an acidity function in this case gives pA 2° = —17.5,61 compared with —16.3 (and m = 1.8) based on X0. Indeed because of limitations to the acidity of concentrated solutions of perchloric or sulfuric acid pICs of more weakly nucleophilic carbocations are not accessible from equilibrium measurements in these media. 

The lower reactivity of the o-thioquinone methide 81 (7.0 x 104 M-1 s 1) compared with the o-l (8.4 x 105 M-1 s 1) in acidic solution contrasts with the much higher reactivity of 81 at neutral pH (Table 1). This may represent the balance between the smaller concentration of the protonated thioquinone methide compared with protoned o-l due to the weaker basicity of o-S (pATa < —3 Table 1) compared with o-S (pKa < —1.7) and the presumably greater intrinsic reactivity of H-81 +. 58 However, the observed effects of sulfur for oxygen substitution on carbocation reactivity have in the past proven very difficult to rationize,130,160 and in the present case are probably not fully understood. 

Two of the reactions that are used in the industrial preparation of detergents are electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions. First, a large hydrocarbon group is attached to a benzene ring by a Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction employing tetrapropene as the source of the carbocation electrophile. The resulting alkylbenzene is then sulfonated by reaction with sulfuric acid. Deprotonation of the sulfonic acid with sodium hydroxide produces the detergent. 

El eliminations of alkyl halides are rarely useful for synthetic purposes because they give mixtures of substitution and elimination products. Explain why the sulfuric acid-catalyzed dehydration of cyclohexanol gives a good yield of cyclohexene even though the reaction goes by an El mechanism. (Hint What are the nucleophiles in the reaction mixture What products are formed if these nucleophiles attack the carbocation What further reactions can these substitution products undergo )... 

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