Spectroscopic and theoretical studies on the nucleophilic substitution of 2,3-dichloronaphthoquinone with para-substituted anilines in solid state via initial charge transfer complexation.

Various spectroscopy techniques (UV-Vis, DRS, FT-IR, (1)H NMR, LC-MS) and theoretical computations have been employed to investigate the mechanism of the nucleophilic substitution reaction of 2,3-dichloronaphthoquinone (DCNQ) with para-substituted anilines in solid state under base- and solvent-free conditions against traditional synthetic routes. The initial formations of electron donor acceptor (EDA) adduct between DCNQ and aniline was found to be the driving force for the substitution reaction to occur in solid phase.