Systems with several identical substituents

Especially for systems with several identical substituents of senior parent structure character the conjunctive method offers manifest advantages. 

The stmcture of vitamin A [11103-57-4] and some of the important derivatives are shown in Figure 1. The parent stmcture is aH-Zra/ j -retinol [68-26-8] and its lUPAC name is (all-E)-3,7-dimethyl-9-(2,6,6-trimethyl-l-cyclohexen-l-yl)-2,4,6,8-nonatetraen-l-ol (1). The numbering system for vitamin A derivatives parallels the system used for the carotenoids. In older Hterature, vitamin A compounds are named as derivatives of trimethyl cyclohexene and the side chain is named as a substituent. For retinoic acid derivatives, the carboxyl group is denoted as C-1 and the trimethyl cyclohexane ring as a substituent on C-9. The stmctures of vitamin A and -carotene were elucidated by Karrer in 1930 and several derivatives of the vitamin were prepared by this group (5,6). In 1935, Wald isolated a substance found in the visual pigments of the eye and was able to show that this material was identical with Karrer s retinaldehyde [116-31-4] (5) (7). 

With respect to unsaturated hydrocarbons we should note that compounds exhibiting one or several double bonds are often called alkenes or olefins. Finally, we need to add a brief note concerning the nomenclature in aromatic systems, particularly, in six-numbered rings such as benzene. Here the terms ortho-, meta-, and ara-substi-tution are often used to express the relative position of two substituents in a given ring system. Identically, we could refer to those isomers as 1,2-(ortho), 1,3-(meta), 1,4-(para) disubstituted compounds (see margin). 

Compared with the parent system and those with identical substitution in all four carbons, the structure of other derivatives should be affected by the substitution pattern and by the nature of the substituents. For 1,2-disubstituted derivatives, structure type C, in which the doubly substituted cyclobutane bond is weakened (and lengthened), or a related structure type in which the bond is cleaved, should be favored. This is born out by several observations mentioned earlier. For example, the geometric isomerization of 1,2-diaryloxycyclobutane (Sect. 4.1) can be rationalized by one-bond rotation in a type C radical ion. Similarly, the fragmentation of the anti-head-to-head dimer of dimethylindene (Sect. 4.4) may involve consecutive cleavage of two cyclobutane bonds in a type C radical ion. The (dialkylbenzene) substituents have a lower ionization potential (IP 9.25 eV) [349] than the cyclobutane moiety (IP 10.7 eV) [350] hence, the primary ionization is expected to occur from one of the aryl groups. 

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