title: Quantification of the electrophilic reactivities of aldehydes, imines, and enones.
abstract: The rates of the epoxidation reactions of aldehydes, of the aziridination reactions of aldimines, and of the cyclopropanation reactions of α,β-unsaturated ketones with aryl-stabilized dimethylsulfonium ylides have been determined photometrically in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). All of these sulfur ylide-mediated cyclization reactions as well as the addition reactions of stabilized carbanions to N-tosyl-activated aldimines have been shown to follow a second-order rate law, where the rate constants reflect the (initial) CC bond formation between nucleophile and electrophile. The derived second-order rate constants (log k(2)) have been combined with the known nucleophilicity parameters (N, s(N)) of the aryl-stabilized sulfur ylides 4a,b and of the acceptor-substituted carbanions 4c-h to calculate the electrophilicity parameters E of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes (1a-i), N-acceptor-substituted aromatic aldimines (2a-e), and α,β-unsaturated ketones (3a-f) according to the linear free-energy relationship log k(2) = s(N)(N + E) as defined in J. Am. Chem. Soc.2001, 123, 9500-9512. The data reported in this work provide the first quantitative comparison of the electrophilic reactivities of aldehydes, imines, and simple Michael acceptors in DMSO with carbocations and cationic metal-π complexes within our comprehensive electrophilicity scale.
authors.affiliation: Department Chemie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Butenandtstrasse 5-13, 81377 München, Germany.
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Appel
authors.forename: Herbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mayr