Formation of bromocarbenium bromide ion pairs in the electrophilic bromination of highly reactive olefins in chlorinated aprotic solvents

The kinetics and the products of bromination of several substituted stilbenes with tetrabutylammonium tribromide (TBAT) have been investigated in aprotic solvents at different temperatures, Stilbenes bearing electron-withdrawing or moderately electron-donating substituents gave stereospecifically the anti addition products. The reactions followed a second-order rate law, and an inverse kinetic isotope effect (KIE), K-H/k(D) = 0.85(0.05), was found for the bromination of cis-stilbene. The reactions of cis- and trans-4,4-dimethoxystilbenes yielded mixtures of meso and d,l dibromides both in chloroform and 1,2-dichloroethane. The rate constants (k(Br3)-) measured for the latter olefins deviated considerably fi om the Hammett correlations, and added bromide had a significant effect on the rates. The reactions of these activated stilbenes with molecular Br-2, carried out at low Br-2 concentration, followed a mixed second/third-order rate law. The kinetic and product distribution data for the reaction, with TBAT, of stilbenes bearing electron-withdrawing or moderately electron-donating substituents are interpreted on the basis of the known mechanism involving a product- and rate-determining nucleophilic attack by bromide on the olefin-Br-2 pi-complex. The data related to the bromination of the more activated methoxystilbenes are rationalized considering that, for these olefins, even in aprotic solvents, the ionization of the initially formed 1:1 rr-complex to a bromocarbenium bromide ion pair can compete both with the formation of a bromonium-tribromide ion pair and with the nucleophilic attack by Br-. For this second-order process (first order in Br-2), the kinetic constants and the activation parameters have been measured in chloroform and 1,2-dichloroethane and the activation parameters have been compared with those related to the third-order Br-2 addition and to the reaction with TBAT.