1,5-hexadiene Cope rearrangement

Step through the sequence of stmctures depicting Cope rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene. Plot energy (vertical axis) vs. the length of either the carbon-carbon bond being formed or that being broken (horizontal axis). Locate the transition state. Measure all CC bond distances at the transition state, and draw a structural formula for it... 

Two other important sigmatropic reactions are the Claisen rearrangement of an allyl aryl ether discussed in Section 18.4 and the Cope rearrangement of a 1,5-hexadiene. These two, along with the Diels-Alder reaction, are the most useful pericyclic reactions for organic synthesis many thousands of examples of all three are known. Note that the Claisen rearrangement occurs with both allylic aryl ethers and allylic vinylic ethers. 

Cope rearrangement (Section 30.8) The sigmatropic rearrangement of a 1,5-hexadiene. 

As we have indicated with our arrows, the mechanism of the uncatalyzed Cope rearrangement is a simple six-centered pericyclic process. Since the mechanism is so simple, it has been possible to study some rather subtle points, among them the question of whether the six-membered transition state is in the boat or the chair form. ° For the case of 3,4-dimethyl-l,5-hexadiene it was demonstrated conclusively that the transition state is in the chair form. This was shown by the stereospecific nature of the reaction The meso isomer gave the cis-trans product, while the ( ) compound gave the trans-trans diene. If the transition state is in the chair form (e.g., taking the meso isomer), one methyl must be axial and the other equatorial and the product must be the cis-trans alkene ... 

It was pointed out earlier that a Cope rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene gives 1,5-hexadiene. This is a degenerate Cope rearrangement (p. 1380). Another molecule that undergoes it is bicyclo[5.1.0]octadiene (105). At room temperature the NMR... 

Fig. 19. Two examples of degenerate Cope rearrangement, a) 1,5-hexadiene b) semibullvalene.

The next homolog, 1,5-hexadiene (1,5-HD), is of special chemical interest because the molecule is capable of undergoing the so-called Cope rearrangement. A GED study of 1,5-HD was also recently reported6. Because of the increased conformational complexity of this molecule compared to that of 1,4-PD, the structural details of the various con-formers could not be resolved and only averaged structure parameters were determined from the gas phase. Molecules in the solid state are frozen, mostly in only one conformation, which may but must not represent the conformational ground state. Therefore, conformational isomerization is usually not discussed with X-ray structures presented in the literature. 

SCHEME 18. van der Waals volume of activation AV and volume of activation calculated for degenerate Cope rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene... 

SCHEME 20. Activation volumes of Cope rearrangements in unpolar 1,5-hexadiene systems... 

The numbering is written by the order i, j written in a bracket. The letter / and j denote the number of atoms across which the o bond migrates. Let us take the case of cope-rearrangement of 1, 5 hexadiene. 

There are also instances where a system undergoes Cope rearrangement through different possibilities. This is afforded by the examples of hexadiene. The alternatives are of two types. 

Much experimental and theoretical work has been performed with the two allenes 1,2,6-heptatriene (32) and 1,2,6,7-octatetraene (34). Thermal isomerization of 32 leads to 3-methylene-l,5-hexadiene (346), a process that at first sight looks like a typical Cope rearrangement. However, trapping experiments with either oxygen or sulfur dioxide have shown that at least half of the rearrangement passes through the diradical 345 (Scheme 5.52) [144],... 

An antibody, originally generated against a diaryl substituted cyclohexanol derivative, has been employed to catalyze the oxy-Cope rearrangement of hexadiene 100 to aldehyde 101 (equation 55)80,81. A rate enhancement of 5300-fold over the uncatalyzed reaction was achieved. 

The cyclic diradical, 2-methylene-1,4-cyclohexadiyl (18), can be formed from the hepta-1,2,6-triene 1722,23. Thermolysis of 17 gives 3-methylene-l,5-hexadiene 19 as a Cope rearrangement product, while the same treatment (155 °C, benzene) in the presence of SO2 leads to sulfones 20 and 21 instead of 19 (equation 6). It was shown that sulfone 20 is obtained by reaction of SO2 with the rearrangement product 19, while sulfone 21 originates directly from the diradical 18. 

Along with a very wide synthetic application the Cope rearrangement continues to be a subject of intense debates. The key mechanistic question is whether the rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene derivatives is concerted and passes via a six-electron aromatic transition state, or whether it involves the formation of a diradical intermediate, i.e. a cyclization-cleavage mechanism. In the former case, bond making and bond breaking occur synchronously (a survey of this question has been published210). 

Cope himself formulated this transformation as what would now be called a synchronous pericyclic reaction . This interpretation was supported by Woodward-Hoffmann s analysis of pericyclic processes. The Cope rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene derivatives was regarded therefore for a long time as a classical example of an allowed pericyclic reaction... 

The competition of the Cope rearrangement with cyclization processes was reported for perfluoro-l,5-hexadiene 457233. The cyclizations proceed undoubtedly via the corresponding diradicals 458 and 459 (equation 173). This course of events was revealed by using a... 

There is no unity of opinion in the literature concerning a classification, i.e, whether to call these transformations aza-Claisen or aza-Cope rearrangements. It is accepted that the term aza-Claisen should be reserved only for those processes in which a carbon atom in the allyl vinyl ether system has been replaced by nitrogen357. Three different types of aliphatic 3-aza-Cope reactions which were studied theoretically are the rearrangements of 3-aza-l,5-hexadienes (610, equation 262), 3-azonia-l,5-hexadienes (611, equation 263) and 3-aza-l,2,5-hexatrienes (612, equation 264) (the latter is a ketenimine rearrangement )357. 

However, a better known version of the 2-aza-Cope rearrangement is that carried out by using 2-aza-l,5-hexadienes 619 (equation 269) and particularly their iminium ion counterparts, usually N-acyliminium cations 620 (equation 270)365,366 (for reviews, see also Reference 367). Aza-Cope rearrangement of the norbomene ester 621 leads to tetrahydropyridine ester 622 when allowed to stand in solution at room temperature for... 

NMR and kinetic studies have been carried out on the antibody-catalysed oxy-Cope rearrangement of hexadiene (100) to aldehyde (101). An aromatic oxy-Cope rearrangement involving a benzene ring [see (102) (103)] has been observed to... 

The Cope rearrangement is the conversion of a 1,5-hexadiene derivative to an isomeric 1,5-hexadiene by the [3,3] sigmatropic mechanism. The reaction is both stereospecific and stereoselective. It is stereospecific in that a Z or E configurational relationship at either double bond is maintained in the transition state and governs the stereochemical relationship at the newly formed single bond in the product.137 However, the relationship depends upon the conformation of the transition state. When a chair transition state is favored, the EyE- and Z,Z-dienes lead to anli-3,4-diastereomcrs whereas the E,Z and Z,/i-isomcrs give the 3,4-syn product. Transition-state conformation also... 

All three models show broadly similar behavior. Errors associated with replacement of exacf reactant and transition-state geometries by AMI geometries are typically on the order of 2-3 kcal/mol, although there are cases where much larger errors are observed. In addition, AMI calculations failed to locate a reasonable transition state for one of the reactions in the set, the Cope rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene. 

Figure 12.6. a) Cope rearrangement of 1,5-hexadiene (6) oxy-Cope rearrangement (c) divinyl-cyclopropane rearrangement (d) degenerate rearrangements of bullvalene. 

---