Free Energy Relationships for Reactions of Substituted Benzhydrylium Ions: From Enthalpy over Entropy to Diffusion Control

Abstract

Second-order rate constants k(2) for the reactions of various donor- and acceptor-substituted benzhydrylium ions Ar(2)CH(+) with π-nucleophiles in CH(2)Cl(2) were determined by laser flash irradiation of benzhydryl triarylphosphonium salts Ar(2)CH-PAr(3)(+)X(-) in the presence of a large excess of the nucleophiles. This method allowed us to investigate fast reactions up to the diffusional limit including reactions of highly reactive benzhydrylium ions with m-fluoro and p-(trifluoromethyl) substituents. The rate constants determined in this work and relevant literature data were jointly subjected to a correlation analysis to derive the electrophilicity parameters E for acceptor-substituted benzhydrylium ions, as defined by the linear free energy relationship log k(2)(20 °C) = s(N)(N + E). The new correlation analysis also leads to the N and s(N) parameters of 18 π-nucleophiles, which have only vaguely been characterized previously. The correlations of log k(2) versus E are linear well beyond the range where the activation enthalpies ΔH(++) of the reactions are extrapolated to reach the value of ΔH(++) = 0, showing that the change from enthalpy control to entropy control does not cause a bend in the linear free energy relationship, a novel manifestation of the compensation effect. A flattening of the correlation lines only occurs for k(2) > 10(8) M(-1) s(-1) when the diffusion limit is approached.