Recent advances in studying Brønsted (organic) superbases and superacids, attained by the modern computational chemistry methods, will be presented. It will appear that, by following a simple strategy developed by us [1], one can tailor a dense ladder of neutral organic superbases up to the proton affinity (PA) of 300 kcal/mol [2-4]. Since the PA of the archetypal DMAN (1,8-bis-dimethylaminonaphthalene) superbase in the gas phase (GP) is 245.7 kcal/mol, it follows that the most powerful designed superbases are stronger by 40 orders of magnitude than the reference compound. Their pK_a in acetonitrile is about 50 units implying that they retain superbasic properties in solutions too. Analogously, it is possible to construct a dense scale of organic superacids with ΔH_acid as low as 245 kcal/mol in the GP by using a concept of the anionic resonance in deprotonated polycyano substituted hydrocarbons [4-8]. Taking into account that pK_a of sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) in DMSO is 1.99, it turns out that the designed superacids are stronger by some 40 orders of magnitude than this molecule taken as a standard of superacidity. Some aspects of syntheses of organic superbases and superacids and possible applications will be discussed.

[1] B. Kovačević, Z. B. Maksić, Proceedings of NIC 2004, 20, 71-80.

[2] B. Kovačević, Z. B. Maksić, Chem. Comm. 2006, 1524-1526.

[3] B. Kovačević, Z. B. Maksić, Tetrahedron Lett. 2006, 47, 2553-2555.

[4] Z. B. Maksić, B. Kovačević, Chem. Eur. J. 2002, 8, 1694-1702.

[5] R. Vianello, Z. B. Maksić, Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2004, 5003-5010.

[6] Z. B. Maksić, R. Vianello, Tetrahedron Lett. 2004, 45, 8663-8666.

[7] R. Vianello, J. F. Liebman, Z. B. Maksić, Chem. Eur. J. 2004, 10, 5751-5761.

[8] R. Vianello, Z. B. Maksić, Chem. Comm. 2005, 3412-3414.

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