An Examination of the Heat Capacity of Activation for the Hydrolysis of t-Butyl Chloride in Water

Abstract

The influence of ion-pair intermediates on solvolytic displacement reactions is considered for cases where the observed rate constant is complex.Such complex and composite rate constants under certain conditions may show deviations from the Arrhenius temperature dependence law. The deviations will manifest themselves as "spurious" positive and/or negative heat capacities of activation, superimposed on the real heat capacity terms.The hypothesis of Albery and Robinson (1) which proposes that the heat capacity of activation for t-butyl chloride is entirely "spurious" in the sense outlined above, is critically evaluated and rejected. An alternative hypothesis that considers the heat capacity to be a manifestation of solvation effects is retained.The mechanism of the hydrolysis of both the methyl and t-butyl halides in water is discussed and the kinetic laws appropriate to each are shown to be consistent with real heat capacities of activation. The mechanism proposed differs from the classical SN1–SN2 description. Both series of substrates are considered to give rise to intimate-ion-pairs but in the case of the methyl halides these react further by a path which involves the nucleophilicity of the solvent in a kinetically significant way. In the cases of the tertiary compounds, solvent separation of ion-pairs becomes kinetically significant. The nucleophilic component which characterizes the destruction of the solvent-separated ion-pairs for the tertiary compounds is kinetically insignificant.