A statistical study of the additivity of substituent effects on the5J(HH) long-range coupling constant of the formyl proton in substituted benzaldehydes

The additivity of chloro and hydroxy substituent effects on the formyl proton spin-spin coupling constants with the meta ring proton, 5J(HH), has been tested with 15 chlorinated benzaldehydes and hydroxybenzaldehydes by multiple linear regression analysis. No general additivity rule was detected with whole data. Using benzaldehyde as the reference substance, a good correlation was achieved for p-hydroxybenzaldehydes. The same reference compound was not suitable for o-hydroxy derivatives; a much better correlation was observed using o-hydroxybenzaldehyde as a reference compound in the latter case.