Computational Methods to Predict the Regioselectivity of Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution Reactions of Heteroaromatic Systems

The validity of calculated NMR shifts to predict the outcome of electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions on different heterocyclic compounds has been examined. Based on an analysis of >130 literature examples it was found that the lowest calculated 13C and/or 1H chemical shift of a heterocycle correlates qualitatively with the regiochemical outcome of halogenation reactions in >80% of the investigated cases. In the remaining cases, the site of electrophilic aromatic substitution can be explained by the calculated HOMO orbitals obtained using density functional theory. Using a combination of these two methods, the accuracy increases to >95%.