A DFT study on nucleophilicity and site selectivity of nitrogen nucleophiles

Nucleophilicty of 32 nitrogen nucleophiles belonging to the families of amine, amide, carbamate, amidine, and pyridine have been calculated at the DFT/B3LYP/6-31G (d, p) level of theory using the gas-phase ionization potential based nucleophilicity index N. The calculated gas phase nucleophilicities of the pyridine series correlate well with Mayr's nucleophilicity values calculated on the basis of experimental quantities and the inverse of electrophilicity index. Local nucleophilicity trend and site selectivity have been analyzed using local nucleophilicity index N-k and the philicity index omega(-)(k). In most cases both the two local indices reproduced the experimentally observed trend. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.