Bonding bond length, butadiene

Conjugated systems pose special problems for molecular mechanics (MM), which can be illustrated as follows benzene has equal bond lengths, butadiene has alternating single and... 

The double-bond length in 1,3-butadiene is 0.134 nm, and the ingle-bond, 0.148 nm. Since normal carbon—carbon single bonds are 0.154 nm, this indicates the extent of double-bond character in the middle single-bond. Upon complexing with metal carbonyl moieties like Fe(CO)2, the two terminal bonds lengthen to 0.141 nm, and the middle bond shortens even more to 0.145 nm (18). 

The mechanism of the carbo-Diels-Alder reaction has been a subject of controversy with respect to synchronicity or asynchronicity. With acrolein as the dieno-phile complexed to a Lewis acid, one would not expect a synchronous reaction. The C1-C6 and C4—C5 bond lengths in the NC-transition-state structure for the BF3-catalyzed reaction of acrolein with butadiene are calculated to be 2.96 A and 1.932 A, respectively [6]. The asynchronicity of the BF3-catalyzed carbo-Diels-Alder reaction is also apparent from the pyramidalization of the reacting centers C4 and C5 of NC (the short C-C bond) is pyramidalized by 11°, while Cl and C6 (the long C-C bond) are nearly planar. The lowest energy transition-state structure (NC) has the most pronounced asynchronicity, while the highest energy transition-state structure (XT) is more synchronous. 

An important contribution for the endo selectivity in the carho-Diels-Alder reaction is the second-order orbital interaction [1], However, no bonds are formed in the product for this interaction. For the BF3-catalyzed reaction of acrolein with butadiene the overlap population between Cl and C6 is only 0.018 in the NC-transi-tion state [6], which is substantially smaller than the interaction between C3 and O (0.031). It is also notable that the C3-0 bond distance, 2.588 A, is significant shorter than the C1-C6 bond length (2.96 A), of which the latter is the one formed experimentally. The NC-transition-state structure can also lead to formation of vinyldihydropyran, i.e. a hetero-Diels-Alder reaction has proceeded. The potential energy surface at the NC-transition-state structure is extremely flat and structure NCA (Fig. 8.6) lies on the surface-separating reactants from product [6]. 

The transition-state structure of the hetero-Diels-Alder reaction is generally found to be unsymmetrical. Houk et al. have for the reaction of formaldehyde with 1,3-butadiene calculated the C-C and C-0 bond lengths to be 2.133 A and 1.998 A, respectively, in the transition state using ab-initio calculations shown in Fig. 8.12 [25 bj. The reaction of formaldimine follows the same trend for the transition-state structure. 

The hetero-Diels-Alder reaction of formaldehyde with 1,3-butadiene has been investigated with the formaldehyde oxygen atom coordinated to BH3 as a model for a Lewis acid [25 bj. Two transition states were located, one with BH3 exo, and one endo, relative to the diene. The former has the lowest energy and the calculated transition-state structure is much less symmetrical than for the uncatalyzed reaction shown in Fig. 8.12. The C-C bond length is calculated to be 0.42 A longer, while the C-0 bond length is 0.23 A shorter, compared to the uncatalyzed reac-... 

Butadiene Electron Delocalization 13.7A Bond Length of 1,3-Butadiene... 

The introduction of electron correlation produces the same kind of effects on the CC bond lengths as those observed for butadiene. For hexatriene and octatetraene the inner C=C bonds are predicted to be longer than the outer C=C bonds. This result is in excellent agreement with experimental data corresponding to hexatriene, but differs from the experimental result in the case of octatetraene. This discrepancy has been suggested to be due to an important experimental error in the reported values42. 

Butadiene, C4H6, is a planar molecule that has the following carbon-carbon bond lengths in A (10" °m) ... 

FIGURE 24. Proposed transition stmcture for epoxidation of an aryl-substituted styrene (4-vinyl-biphenyl, left) and the transition stmcture for epoxidation of 1,3-butadiene (right, calculated at the QC1SD/6-31G level). The theoretical isotope effects were calculated at the MP2/6-31G level using the Bell tunneling correction. For a discussion see Reference 19b. Bond lengths are given in A... 

FIGURE 23. Selected geometrical parameters for the transition structures for the epoxidation of 1,3-butadiene (a) and acrylonitrile (b) with peroxyformic acid calculated at the QCISD/6-31G, CISD/6-31G (in parentheses), B3LYP/6-31G (in square brackets) and MP2/6-31G (in curly brackets) levels. The B3LYP/6-311+G(3df,2p) values are given in italic in square brackets. Bond lengths... 

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