Aggregation and reactivity of the cesium enolate of 6-phenyl-alpha-tetralone: comparison with the lithium enolate.

The cesium enolate of 6-phenyl-alpha-tetralone (CsPAT) has a lambda(max) in THF at about 387 nm, but the variation with concentration is too small for application of singular value decomposition. Proton-transfer studies with several indicators show that CsPAT forms monomer-tetramer mixtures with a tetramerization equilibrium constant, K(1,4) = 2.3 x 10(11) M(-3). The pK of the monomer is 23.39 on a scale where fluorene is assigned 22.9 (per hydrogen). For comparison, the lithium enolate, LiPAT, is also a monomer-tetramer with K(1,4) = 4.7 x 10(10) M(-3) and a monomer pK = 14.22. HMPA in large amounts promotes dissociation to monomer with both enolates. Ion-pair S(N)2 initial rates were measured for CsPAT with several alkyl halides and with methyl tosylate and compared with other rates with LiPAT. In all cases, the enolate monomers are much more reactive than the aggregates. Reaction of CsPAT with alkyl halides is generally C-alkylation but HMPA promotes increasing amounts of O-alkylation. A new indicator, 11-methyl-11H-benzo[b]fluorene, has a pK on the cesium scale of 23.39.