Kinetics of α-(2,6-Dimethylphenl)vinyllithium: How To Control Errors Caused by Inefficient Mixing with Pairs of Rapidly Competing Ketones.

Kinetic studies are a suitable tool to disclose the role of tiny reagent fractions. The title compound 2 reacted in a kinetic reaction order of 0.5 (square root of its concentration) with an excess of the electrophiles ClSiMe3, 1-bromobutane (n-BuBr), or 1-iodobutane (n-BuI) at 32 °C in Et2O or in hydrocarbon solvents. This revealed that the tiny (NMR-invisible) amount of a deaggregated equilibrium component (presumably monomeric 2) was the reactive species, whereas the disolvated dimer 2 was only indirectly involved as a supply depot. Selectivity data (relative rate constants κobs) were collected from competition experiments with the faster reactions of 2 in THF and the addition reactions of 2 to carbonyl compounds. This provided the rate sequences of Et2C═O > dicyclopropyl ketone > t-Bu-C(═O)-Ph > diisopropyl ketone ≫ t-Bu2C═O > ClSiMe3 > n-BuI > n-BuBr ≈ (bromomethyl)cyclopropane (but t-Bu2C═O < ClSiMe3 in THF only) and also of cyclopropanecarbaldehyde > acetone ≥ t-Bu-CH═O. It is suggested that a deceivingly depressed selectivity (1 < κobs < kA/kB), caused by inefficient microscopic mixing of a reagent X with two competing substrates A and B, may become evident toward zero deviation from the correlation line of the usual inverse (1/T) linear temperature dependence of ln κobs.