Evidence for general base catalysis by protic solvents in a kinetic study of alcoholyses and hydrolyses of 1-(phenoxycarbonyl)pyridinium ions under both solvolytic and non-solvolytic conditions

Abstract

The kinetics of nucleophilic substitution reactions of 1-(phenoxycarbonyl)pyridinium ions, prepared with the essentially non-nucleophilic/non-basic fluoroborate as the counterion, have been studied using up to 1.60 M methanol in acetonitrile as solvent and under solvolytic conditions in 2,2,2-trifluoroethan-1-ol (TFE) and its mixtures with water. Under the non- solvolytic conditions, the parent and three pyridine-ring-substituted derivatives were studied. Both second-order (first-order in methanol) and third-order (second-order in methanol) kinetic contributions were observed. In the solvolysis studies, since solvent ionizing power values were almost constant over the range of aqueous TFE studied, a Grunwald–Winstein equation treatment of the specific rates of solvolysis for the parent and the 4-methoxy derivative could be carried out in terms of variations in solvent nucleophilicity, and an appreciable sensitivity to changes in solvent nucleophilicity was found.