The effects of ionic liquids on the ethanolysis of a chloroacenaphthene. Evaluation of the effectiveness of nucleofugality data to predict reaction outcome

The reaction of a chlorobenzene in mixtures containing ethanol and eight different ionic liquids was investigated in order to understand the effects of varying proportions and constituent ions of an ionic liquid on the rate constant of the process. The results were found to be generally consistent with previously studied reactions of the same type, with small proportions of an ionic liquid resulting in a rate constant increase compared to ethanol and large proportions causing a rate constant decrease. Temperature dependent kinetic studies were used to interpret the changes in reaction outcome, particularly noting an entropic cost on moving to high proportions of ionic liquid, consistent with organisation of solvent around the transition state. While attempts to use empirical solvent parameters to correlate outcome with the ionic liquid used were unsuccessful, use of recently acquired nucleofugality data for chloride and estimations for the electrofuge allowed for excellent prediction of the effects of ionic liquids, with rate constants quantitatively predicted in systems containing both different proportions of ionic liquid (mean absolute error (MAE) log(k(1)) = 0.11) and different ionic liquids (MAE log(k(1)) = 0.33). Importantly, this demonstrates the ready application of these quantitative reactivity parameters.