Theoretical Estimate of Hydride Affinities of Aromatic Carbonyl Compounds

Aromatic carbonyl compounds are one type of the most important organic compounds, and the reductions ofthem by hydride agents such as LiAlH4 or NaBH4 are widely used in organic synthesis. The reactivity of carbonyl compounds generally increases in the following order: ketone ＜ aldehyde, and amide ＜ acid ＜ ester ＜ acid halide, which could be related to their hydride affinities (HA). In the previous paper, Robert[1] calculated the absolute HAof a series of small non-aromatic carbonyl compounds. In this paper, we use DFT method at B3LYP/6-311 + + G (2d, 2p)∥B3LYP/6-31 + G* level to estimate hydride affinities of five groups of aromatic carbonyl compounds. The detailed results are listed in Table 1.……