Acid-Catalyzed Skeletal Rearrangements in Arenes: Aryl versus Alkyl Ring Pirouettes in Anthracene and Phenanthrene

In 1 M triflic acid/dichloroethane, anthracene is protonated at C9, and the resulting 9-anthracenium ion is easily observed by NMR at ambient temperature. When heated as a dilute solution in triflic acid/dichloroethane, anthracene undergoes conversion to phenanthrene as the major volatile product. Minor dihydro and tetrahydro products are also observed. MALDI analysis supports the simultaneous formation of oligomers, which represent 10-60% of the product. Phenanthrene is nearly inert to the same superacid conditions. DFT and CCSD(T)//DFT computational models were constructed for isomerization and automerization mechanisms. These reactions are believed to occur by cationic ring pirouettes which pass through spirocyclic intermediates. The direct aryl pirouette mechanism for anthracene has a predicted DFT barrier of 33.6 kcal/mol; this is too high to be consistent with experiment. The ensemble of experimental and computational models supports a multistep isomerization process, which proceeds by reduction to 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroanthracene, acid-catalyzed isomerization to 1,2,3,4-tetrahydrophenanthrene with a predicted DFT barrier of 19.7 kcal/mol, and then reoxidation to phenanthrene. By contrast, DFT computations support a direct pirouette mechanism for automerization of outer ring carbons in phenanthrene, a reaction demonstrated previously by Balaban through isotopic labeling.