Heteroatom influence in substituted benzenes and pyridine-like heterocycles in terms of direct and indirect intramolecular interactions

Abstract

The general expression for the one-electron density matrix obtained previously for saturated organic molecules (V. Gineityte, J. Mol. Struct. (Theochem), 343 (1995) 183) is shown to be applicable also to substituted benzenes and pyridine-like heterocycles. On this basis, a new interpretation of the influence of a heteroatom (substituent) upon the remaining fragment of an aromatic molecule is suggested. To this end, the occupation number of a 2p z AO of the aromatic ring has been expressed as a sum of five terms, two of them describing the intramolecular charge transfer and the remaining ones representing the secondary (induced) dipole moments arising within the ring under the influence of heteroatom, viz. the so-called ipso–ortho ( para–meta), para–ipso and ortho–meta dipole moments. Just the latter two moments proved to play the principal role in the formation of the observed picture of the electron density distribution, viz. of an increase (reduction) of occupation numbers of 2p z AOs in the ortho and para positions after introducing an electron-donating (accepting) substituent. For pyridine-like heterocycles and substituted benzenes, these dipole moments are determined mostly by the direct and the indirect interactions, respectively, between the highest occupied and the lowest vacant MO of benzene. Orbitals of the heteroatom (substituent) play the role of mediators in the above-mentioned indirect interaction.