Why are vinyl cations sluggish electrophiles?
Loading...
Files
Date
2017-01-01
Authors
Byrne, Peter A.
Kobayashi, Shinjiro
Würthwein, Ernst-Ulrich
Ammer, Johannes
Mayr, Herbert
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Chemical Society, ACS
Published Version
Abstract
The kinetics of the reactions of the vinyl cations 2 [Ph2C═C+–(4-MeO–C6H4)] and 3 [Me2C═C+–(4-MeO–C6H4)] (generated by laser flash photolysis) with diverse nucleophiles (e.g., pyrroles, halide ions, and solvents containing variable amounts of water or alcohol) have been determined photometrically. It was found that the reactivity order of the nucleophiles toward these vinyl cations is the same as that toward diarylcarbenium ions (benzhydrylium ions). However, the reaction rates of vinyl cations are affected only half as much by variation of the nucleophiles as those of the benzhydrylium ions. For that reason, the relative reactivities of vinyl cations and benzhydrylium ions depend strongly on the nature of the nucleophiles. It is shown that vinyl cations 2 and 3 react, respectively, 227 and 14 times more slowly with trifluoroethanol than the parent benzhydrylium ion (Ph)2CH+, even though in solvolysis reactions (80% aqueous ethanol at 25 °C) the vinyl bromides leading to 2 and 3 ionize much more slowly (half-lives 1.15 yrs and 33 days) than (Ph)2CH-Br (half-life 23 s). The origin of this counterintuitive phenomenon was investigated by high-level MO calculations. We report that vinyl cations are not exceptionally high energy intermediates, and that high intrinsic barriers for the sp2 ⇌ sp rehybridizations account for the general phenomenon that vinyl cations are formed slowly by solvolytic cleavage of vinyl derivatives, and are also consumed slowly by reactions with nucleophiles.
Description
Keywords
Vinyl cations , Marcus theory , Electrophilicity , Nucleophilicity , Intrinsic barrier , Solvolysis
Citation
Byrne, P. A., Kobayashi, S., Würthwein, E.-U., Ammer, J. and Mayr, H. (2017) 'Why Are Vinyl Cations Sluggish Electrophiles?', Journal of the American Chemical Society, 139(4), pp. 1499-1511. doi: 10.1021/jacs.6b10889
Link to publisher’s version
Collections
Copyright
© 2017 American Chemical Society. This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Journal of the American Chemical Society, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jacs.6b10889