The equilibrium acidity scale (pKa scale) in acetonitrile (MeCN) has been supplemented by numerous new compounds and new ΔpKa measurements and has been published in Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2021, 1407–1419 (Open access). The pKa scale now contains altogether 231 acids – over twice more than published previously – linked by 566 ΔpKa measurements and spans between the pKa values of hydrogen iodide (2.8) and indole (32.57), covering close to 30 orders of magnitude. The acids have wide structural variety, ranging from common families – phenols (e.g. picric acid, alizarin, polyhalogenophenols), carboxylic acids (e.g. acetic, benzoic, retinoic and sorbic acid), sulfonic acids, hydrogen halides) to highly special molecules (chiral BINOL catalysts, bis(benzoxazole-2-yl)methanes, polyfluorinated compounds) and superacids (fluorinated sulfonimides, cyanoform, tetracyanopropenes).
Measurement results acquired over the last 15 years were added to the scale and new least squares treatment was carried out. The treatment yielded revised pKa values for the compounds published previously, with the root mean square difference between revised and previous values 0.04, demonstrating very good stability of the scale.
Correlation equations were developed for estimating pKa values for the studied types of compounds in water, DMSO, DMF and 1,2-dichloroethane on the basis of pKa values in acetonitrile. These equations enable predicting pKa values with an average error around or less than 1 pKa unit, which is a sufficient accuracy for many applications.
The scale is expected to be a useful tool for the widest possible research areas in organic chemistry, electrochemical power sources, catalysis, etc.
