Why are alkyl groups said to be electron "releasing" (also known as electron "donating") compared to hydrogen when talking about carbocations?
1 Answer
This is in the context of a discussion on hyperconjugation stabilization.
For a carbocation, you can have either a methyl (
They are ranked in stability like so:
You can see that from left to right the number of alkyl groups attached to the central positively-charged carbon increases (each alkyl group replaces a hydrogen), which correlates with the increase in stability.
So, it must be that the alkyl groups have something to do with it. In fact, there is an effect called hyperconjugation that describes what is going on here. This is one instance, but there are other kinds for other contexts.
In this case, the electrons in a
The above image depicts a comparison between a primary carbocation and a methyl carbocation.
The carbon with the empty, purple
This extends the molecular orbital to stabilize the carbocation and demonstrates the electron donating/releasing character of an adjacent methyl group.
We can see the stabilizing effect in this molecular orbital diagram:
The empty
(It doesn't have to be empty though; it could be partially filled, like in a carbon radical compound.)