Kinetics and mechanism of aromatic thalliation and mercuriation-an NMR study

The rates of reaction of Tl (III) tris(trifluoroacetate) with benzene toluene and t-butylbenzene in solvent trifluoroacetic acid have been measured by an NMR method. The reaction products have been unambiguously determined from the thallium-hydrogen coupling constants. In the case of toluene, p-tolylthallium bis(trifluoroacetate) crystallised from reaction mixtures.Thalliation was shown to be reversible and to be between one and two orders of magnitude slower than mercuriation. The inductive order of the reactivity (tBu > Me ? H) was found in contrast to the hyperconjugative order for mercuriation. Hammett plots using σ⁺ values yielded a ? value of ?7.4 but the limited data correlated better with σ values (? = ?12.8). A primary isotope effect of 5.0 was found for toluene indicating rate-determining proton transfer. The mechanism is discussed in the light of these and other findings. In addition the rates of interconversion of the products of mercuriation of toluene are reported from NMR data.