The hydrogen bonding basicity of amidines (1)-( 20) has been measured by means of the frequency shift Av(0H) of methanol hydrogen bonded to amidines and of the formation constant K of their complexes with 4-fluorophenol. The electronic and steric effects of substituents on the imino nitrogen have been studied. Hydrogen bonding occurs at the imino nitrogen atom except for acetylformamidine (16) for which it occurs on the carbonyl group. For compounds 4-XC6H,N=CHNMe,, with X = NO, , COMe, or C=N, hydrogen bonding also takes place on the NO, , COMe, or CzN groups. From the logK/Av( OH) correlation, two subsets, phenylformamidines and alkylformamidines, can be distinguished for the family of formamidines. Forformamidines, Bronsted basicities correlate with Av(0H)as for the pyridines.
Hydrogen bonding basicity of amidines has only been measuredfor 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine (1)' and for seven N',N 'dimethyl-N2-phenylformamidines, para and/or meta substituted on the phenyl ring.2,3 We extend here these preliminary results to amidines (2j-(20). All the amidines have the same E stereochemical s t r u c t ~r e . ~-~ (19) ; R = Bu' (20)'; R = But We have measured: (a) Av(OH), a spectroscopic scale of hydrogen bonding basicity, from the frequency shift of the v(0H) vibrator of methanol in CCl, at 20°C; Av(0H) = v(OH, free) -v(OH, hydrogen bonded) and, (b) logK, a thermodynamic scale of hydrogen bonding basicity from the formation constant K of hydrogen bonded complexes of 4fluorophenol with amidines in CCl, at 25 "C. These quantities allow us (a) to study the influence of substitution on hydrogen bonding basicity, (b) to compare hydrogen bonding and Bronsted basicities, and (c) to investigate on which atom (imino nitrogen, amino nitrogen, or heteroatom in R) hydrogen bonding takes place.