Conjugate addition frontier orbitals

When enantiomerically pure allyl p-tolyl sulfoxide is deprotonated and then treated with electrophilic 2-cyclopentenone, a conjugate addition occurs forming a new carbon-carbon bond with very high control of absolute stereochemistry (equation 25)65. See also Reference 48. Similarly, using more substituted enantiomerically pure allylic sulfoxides leads to virtually complete diastereocontrol, as exemplified by equations 26 and 27 the double bond geometry in the initial allylic sulfoxide governs the stereochemistry at the newly allylic carbon atom (compare equations 26 vs. 27)66. Haynes and associates67 rationalize this stereochemical result in terms of frontier molecular orbital considerations... 

In a, P-unsaturated carbonyl compounds and related electron-deficient alkenes and alkynes, there exist two electrophilic sites and both are prone to be attacked by nucleophiles. However, the conjugated site is considerably softer compared with the unconjugated site, based on the Frontier Molecular Orbital analysis.27 Consequently, softer nucleophiles predominantly react with a, (i-unsaturated carbonyl compounds through conjugate addition (or Michael addition). Water is a hard solvent. This property of water has two significant implications for conjugate addition reactions (1) Such reactions can tolerate water since the nucleophiles and the electrophiles are softer whereas water is hard and (2) water will not compete with nucleophiles significantly in such... 

When ene-nitrile oxidoisoquinolium betaine 131 was heated as a dilute solution in toluene to 120 °C (Scheme 1.15), near quantitative conversion to the cycloadduct 133, resulting from the undesired regioselectivity, was observed. While the near complete conversion to cycloadduct 133 of oxidoisoquinolinium betaine 131 indeed demonstrated complete avoidance of the conjugate addition pathway in favor of cycloaddition, initial production of undesired isomeric cycloadduct 133 (instead of 136) was disappointing. Notably, cycloadduct 133 is expected to be less kinetically favored based on frontier molecular orbital (FMO) analysis (assuming dipole HOMO-controlled cycloaddition) of the putative transition state. This result stands in contrast to the cycloaddition of nitroalkene oxidoisoquinolinium betaine... 

The relative rates of reaction of the singlet TMM derivative 14b with a series of alkenes (32) parallel those of a conjugated diene with the same alkenes in Diels-Alder reactions. These relative rates also are well correlated by the frontier orbital model for a concerted reaction. The absolute rates of the biradical cycloadditions are many orders of magnitude greater than those of the model dienes. The relative rates of the alkenes in the cycloadditions of the triplet biradical 14b, on the other hand, follow the reactivity order of their addition reactions with monoradicals. 

There is also a frontier orbital effect that assists conjugate addition over the aldol reaction, You will reeall that the carbonyl carbon is a relatively hard centre, whereas the 3 carbon of an enone is soft, As the nucleophilic enolate becomes more stabilized with extra electron-withdrawing groups, it beeomes increasingly soft and hence more likely to attack the [J carbon,... 

Conjugate, Michael, or 1,4-addition is dominated by frontier orbital interactions and the saturated C=0 compound 3 is the thermodynamic product. 

With two activating substituents, as in the ester 4.159, conjugate reduction (and conjugate addition of carbon nucleophiles) is fast and almost always observed with any nucleophile.390 The stability of the conjugated enolate product 4.160, and Coulombic and frontier orbital factors, all readily explain this observation. 

Not all photochemical additions take place at the carbonyl carbon. Thus photolysis of the ketone 8.215 in isopropanol in the absence of any acid gives the product of attack in the conjugate position 8.218,1185 and this is quite a common and synthetically useful pattern of behaviour.1186 It is consistent with frontier orbital control only if the reaction is not a radical coupling 8.216 + 8.217, but attack of the radical 8.217 on the ground-state a,/3-unsaturated ketone 8.215. This would be a photochemically initiated chain reaction, and should have a high quantum yield the reaction is described as being rapid . 

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