Transition state alkyl halides

Dehydrohalogenation of alkyl halides (Sections 5 14-5 16) Strong bases cause a proton and a halide to be lost from adjacent carbons of an alkyl halide to yield an alkene Regioselectivity is in accord with the Zaitsev rule The order of halide reactivity is I > Br > Cl > F A concerted E2 reaction pathway is followed carbocations are not involved and rearrangements do not occur An anti coplanar arrangement of the proton being removed and the halide being lost characterizes the transition state... 

The 8n2 mechanism is believed to describe most substitutions m which simple pri mary and secondary alkyl halides react with anionic nucleophiles All the examples cited in Table 8 1 proceed by the 8 2 mechanism (or a mechanism very much like 8 2— remember mechanisms can never be established with certainty but represent only our best present explanations of experimental observations) We 11 examine the 8 2 mecha nism particularly the structure of the transition state in more detail in 8ection 8 5 after hrst looking at some stereochemical studies carried out by Hughes and Ingold... 

Rate IS governed by stability of car bocation that is formed in loniza tion step Tertiary alkyl halides can react only by the SnI mechanism they never react by the Sn2 mecha nism (Section 8 9) Rate IS governed by steric effects (crowding in transition state) Methyl and primary alkyl halides can react only by the Sn2 mecha nism they never react by the SnI mechanism (Section 8 6)... 

Enby 6 is an example of a stereospecific elimination reaction of an alkyl halide in which the transition state requires die proton and bromide ion that are lost to be in an anti orientation with respect to each odier. The diastereomeric threo- and e/ytAra-l-bromo-1,2-diphenyl-propanes undergo )3-elimination to produce stereoisomeric products. Enby 7 is an example of a pyrolytic elimination requiring a syn orientation of die proton that is removed and the nitrogen atom of the amine oxide group. The elimination proceeds through a cyclic transition state in which the proton is transferred to die oxygen of die amine oxide group. 

We have previously seen (Scheme 2.9, enby 6), that the dehydrohalogenation of alkyl halides is a stereospecific reaction involving an anti orientation of the proton and the halide leaving group in the transition state. The elimination reaction is also moderately stereoselective (Scheme 2.10, enby 1) in the sense that the more stable of the two alkene isomers is formed preferentially. Both isomers are formed by anti elimination processes, but these processes involve stereochemically distinct hydrogens. Base-catalyzed elimination of 2-iodobutane affords three times as much -2-butene as Z-2-butene. 

Soft electrophiles will prefer carbon, and it is found experimentally that most alkyl halides react to give C-alkylation. Because of the n character of the HOMO of the anion, there is a stereoelectronic preference for attack of the electrophile approximately perpendicular to the plane of the enolate. The frontier orbital is ip2, with electron density mainly at O and C-2. The tpi orbital is transformed into the C=0 bond. The transition state for an 8 2 alkylation of an enolate can be represented as below. 

Elimination bimolecular (E2) mechanism (Section 5.15) Mechanism for elimination of alkyl halides characterized by a transition state in which the attacking base removes a proton at the same time that the bond to the halide leaving group is broken. 

Q The nucleophile OH uses its lone-pair electrons to attack the alkyl halide carbon 180° away from the departing halogen. This leads to a transition state with a partially formed C-OH bond and a partially broken C-Br bond. 

The first SN2 reaction variable to look at is the structure of the substrate. Because the S, j2 transition state involves partial bond formation between the incoming nucleophile and the alkyl halide carbon atom, it seems reasonable that a hindered, bulky substrate should prevent easy approach of the nucleophile, making bond formation difficult. In other words, the transition state for reaction of a sterically hindered alkvl halide, whose carbon atom is "shielded" from approach of the incoming nucleophile, is higher in energy... 

Mechanism of the E2 reaction of an alkyl halide. The reaction takes place in a single step through a transition state in which the double bond begins to form at the same time the H and X groups are leaving. 

Figure 11.18 The transition state for the E2 reaction of an alkyl halide with base. Overlap of the developing p orbitals in the transition state requires periplanar geometry of the reactant.

The mechanism of the cleavage of the alkyl-tin bond by mercuric halides and carboxylates has been thoroughly investigated, and the evidence is in favor of an open Se2 transition state (104-110). 

It is possible to take advantage of the differing characteristics of the periphery and the interior to promote chemical reactions. For example, a dendrimer having a non-polar aliphatic periphery with highly polar inner branches can be used to catalyse unimolecular elimination reactions in tertiary alkyl halides in a non-polar aliphatic solvent. This works because the alkyl halide has some polarity, so become relatively concentrated within the polar branches of the dendrimer. This polar medium favours the formation of polar transition states and intermediates, and allows some free alkene to be formed. This, being nonpolar, is expelled from the polar region, and moves out of the dendrimer and into the non-polar solvent. This is a highly efficient process, and the elimination reaction can be driven to completion with only 0.01 % by mass of a dendrimer in the reaction mixture in the presence of an auxiliary base such as potassium carbonate. 

All negatively charged nucleophiles must of course have a positive counterion. If this ion is Ag (or some other ion that specifically helps in removing the leaving group, p. 451), rather than the more usual Na or K" ", then the transition state is more SnI like. Therefore the use of Ag promotes attack at the more electronegative atom. For example, alkyl halides treated with NaCN... 

Certain alkyl halides and tosylates undergo E2 eliminations faster when treated with such weak bases as Cl in polar aprotic solvents or PhS than with the usual E2 strong bases such as RO in ROH. In order to explain these results Parker et al. proposed that there is a spectrum of E2 transition states in which the base can interact in the transition state with the a carbon as well as with the p hydrogen. At one end of this spectrum is a mechanism (called E2C) in which, in the transition... 

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