Electrostatic interactions in cations and their importance in biology and chemistry

Abstract

Electrostatic effects exert strongly stabilizing influences on cations, in many cases controlling the conformational preferences of these cations. The lowest energy conformers are ones where the positive charge is brought closest to substituents bearing partial negative charges. These conformational biases, along with stereoelectronic effects, can control the stereoselectivity of reactions involving carbocationic intermediates.