Relative reactivities of the pyridine and benzimidazole systems in the chichibabin reaction

1- (or)-Pyridyl- and 1- (or)-pyridylethylbenzimidazoles were synthesized, and their behavior with respect to methyl iodide and sodium amide was studied. The results are discussed from the point of view of the basicities, magnitudes of the dipole moments, interaction of the heterorings, and the electron density distribution in them, calculated by the Hückel MO method or estimated on the basis of the relative position of the chemical shifts in the PMR spectra. It was established that the benzimidazole system undergoes the Chichibabin reaction considerably more readily than the pyridine system. On the basis of the PMR spectral data for the pyridine and benzimidazole bases and cations, it is assumed that this is due to the greater polarizability of the C = N bond of benzimidazole as compared with the C = N bond of pyridine during coordination with NaNH₂.Translated from Khimiya Geterotsiklicheskikh Soedinenii, No. 9, pp. 1252–1263, September, 1972.The authors sincerely thank L. E. Nivorozhkin and G. V. Gorshkova for their assistance in measuring the PMR spectra.