Sulphur electrophiles

The reaction of elemental sulphur with olefins, a reaction of considerable industrial importance, was long thought to involve a homolytic mechanism . At high temperatures such a process may well occur, but at relatively low temperatures there is evidence of a heterolytic reaction which is charac- 

By far the most evidence for electrophilic sulphur is found in the sulphenyl halides (RSCl, RSBr) Although these compounds may in theory react either as sources of RS or X (X = halogen), none of the observed reactions of the sulphenyl halides indicate the latter mode of heterolysis. Kharasch et have presented good evidence for the existence of the 2,4-dinitrobenzene-sulphenium ion (Ar ) in strongly acidic media evidence has also been presented of a strong solvent effect upon the rate of reaction of 2,4-dinitroben-zenesulphenyl chloride and cyclohexene - and of a definite substituent effect in the reaction of this sulphenyl chloride with some substituted styrenes in acetic acid . Such observations are entirely consistent with an electrophilic heterolytic ad tion mechanism involving attack by the sulphenyl chloride in the sense iC -Cl. 

The kinetics of the reaction in acetic acid and in more polar solvents follows the simple law 

Rate = 2[olefin][ArSBr] + 3[olefin][ArSBr]- + j[olefin][ArSBr] (5.9) 

Previously, a similar effect had been observed for the analogous reaction of the sulphenyl chloride, when, in the presence of excess of cyclohexene the rate is proportional to [ArSCl] -, whereas in the presence of excess of sulphenyl chloride the kinetic order with respect to this reactant tended to unity .  

---

Ferrocene is best deprotonated by f-BuLi/f-BuOK in THF at 0 since BuLi alone will not lithiate ferrocene in the absence of TMEDA and leads to multiple lithiation in the presence of TMEDA. In the example in Scheme 134, a sulphur electrophile and a Kagan-Sharpless epoxidation lead to the enantiomerically pure sulphinyl ferrocene 278. The sulphinyl group directs stereoselective ortholithiation (see Section I.B.2), allowing the formation of products such as 279. Nucleophilic attack at sulphur is avoided by using triisopropylphenyllithium for this lithiation. 

A two-sulphur electrophilic addition to alkynes was reported by Bock and coworkers . The reagent is a mixture of the sulphur chloride S2CI2 and aluminium trichloride dissolved in dichloromethane. Initially, 1,2-dithiete 38 is formed, but in the preparative procedure the isolated product is a mixture of 2,6- and 2,5-di-fcr -butyl-1,4-dithiin (39 and 40). When the reaction is performed under nitrogen in a closed tube, the substituted dithiete is oxidized to its radical cation (equation 23). 

The most widely used reactions are those of electrophilic substitution, and under controlled conditions a maximum of three substituting groups, e.g. -NO2 (in the 1,3,5 positions) can be introduced by a nitric acid/sul-phuric acid mixture. Hot cone, sulphuric acid gives sulphonalion whilst halogens and a Lewis acid catalyst allow, e.g., chlorination or brom-ination. Other methods are required for introducing fluorine and iodine atoms. Benzene undergoes the Friedel-Crafts reaction. ... 

It has been suggested that SO3 is the actual electrophilic reagent leading to C3HsS03, the anion of CgH5S03H. However, in sulphuric acid, the following equilibrium probably exists ... 

Concentrated solutions are here considered to be those containing > c. 89 % by weight of sulphuric acid. In these solutions nitric acid is completely ionised to the nitronium ion. This fact, and the notion that the nitronium ion is the most powerful electrophilic nitrating species, makes operation of this species in these media seem probable. Evidence on this point comes from the effect on the rate of added water ( 2.4.2)... 

As the medium is still further diluted, until nitronium ion is not detectable, the second-order rate coefficient decreases by a factor of about 10 for each decrease of 10% in the concentration of the sulphuric acid (figs. 2.1, 2.3, 2.4). The active electrophile under these conditions is not molecular nitric acid because the variation in the rate is not similar to the correspondii chaise in the concentration of this species, determined by ultraviolet spectroscopy or measurements of the vapour pressure. " ... 

For nitrations in sulphuric and perchloric acids an increase in the reactivity of the aromatic compound being nitrated beyond the level of about 38 times the reactivity of benzene cannot be detected. At this level, and with compounds which might be expected to surpass it, a roughly constant value of the second-order rate constant is found (table 2.6) because aromatic molecules and nitronium ions are reacting upon encounter. The encounter rate is measurable, and recognisable, because the concentration of the effective electrophile is so small. 

If, on the other hand, the encounter pair were an oriented structure, positional selectivity could be retained for a different reason and in a different quantitative sense. Thus, a monosubstituted benzene derivative in which the substituent was sufficiently powerfully activating would react with the electrophile to give three different encounter pairs two of these would more readily proceed to the substitution products than to the starting materials, whilst the third might more readily break up than go to products. In the limit the first two would be giving substitution at the encounter rate and, in the absence of steric effects, products in the statistical ratio whilst the third would not. If we consider particular cases, there is nothing in the rather inadequate data available to discourage the view that, for example, in the cases of toluene or phenol, which in sulphuric acid are nitrated at or near the encounter rate, the... 

Nitration in sulphuric acid is a reaction for which the nature and concentrations of the electrophile, the nitronium ion, are well established. In these solutions compounds reacting one or two orders of magnitude faster than benzene do so at the rate of encounter of the aromatic molecules and the nitronium ion ( 2.5). If there were a connection between selectivity and reactivity in electrophilic aromatic substitutions, then electrophiles such as those operating in mercuration and Friedel-Crafts alkylation should be subject to control by encounter at a lower threshold of substrate reactivity than in nitration this does not appear to occur. 

The electrophilic substitution of thiophene is much easier than that of benzene thus, thiophene is protonated in aqueous sulphuric acid about 10 times more rapidly than benzene, and it is brominated by molecular bromine in acetic acid about 10 times more rapidly than benzene. Benzene in turn is between 10 and lo times more reactive than an uncharged pyridine ring to electrophilic substitution. 

It should be pointed out the H ion alone is insufficiently powerful to affect disruption of the siloxane bond without the simultaneous action of the F" ion. Consequently sulphuric and nitric acid do not initiate attack, even at temperatures up to 1 000°C. Exceptions to the principle are hydrochloric and hydroiodic acid, which, although satisfying the requirements of simultaneous nucleophilic-electrophilic attack, exert a negligible degrading effect on silica. 

The few exceptions to this general rule arise when the a-carbon carries a substituent that can stabilize carbonium-ion development well, such as oxygen or sulphur. For example, 1-trimethylsilyl trimethylsilyl enol ethers give products (72) derived from electrophilic attack at the /J-carbon, and the vinylsilane (1) reacts with a/3-unsaturated acid chlorides in a Nazarov cyclization (13) to give cyclopentenones such as (2) the isomeric vinylsilane (3), in which the directing effects are additive, gives the cyclopentenone (4) ... 

Nitration by nitric acid in sulphuric acid has also been by Modro and Ridd52 in a kinetic study of the mechanism by which the substituent effects of positive poles are transmitted in electrophilic substitution. The rate coefficients for nitration of the compounds Pl CHi NMej (n = 0-3) given in Table 10 show that insertion of methylene groups causes a substantial decrease in deactivation by the NMej group as expected. Since analysis of this effect is complicated by the superimposed activation by the introduced alkyl group, the reactivities of the... 

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. 

Finally, it is customary to compare the partial rate factors obtained under different conditions to indicate the reactivity of the electrophile. Unfortunately, the medium, nitric acid in sulphuric acid, in which the nitronium ion is most clearly established as the electrophile, is such a poor solvent for aromatics that meaningful competitive nitrations are impossible and kinetic studies are hampered by the difficulties noted above. However, since the isomer distribution is a function of the rate factors, inspection of these distributions (Table 15) shows a very... 

In this work, Brand and Horning158 showed that the rate of sulphonation of phenyltrimethylammonium ion was linearly related to the calculated concentration of protonated sulphur trioxide HSO3, indicating it to be the electrophile. Added sulphate anions reduced the rate for 4-nitrotoluene in direct proportion to their concentration, and this followed from the equilibrium... 

---