Cyclic concerted transition state

Mechanistically, the exchange process may involve a four-membered or other cyclic concerted transition state, or may possibly proceed via an electron-transfer sequence, however direct nucleophilic attack, at least on iodine, has been demonstrated in the case of iodobenzene, and cannot therefore be dismissed as a more general mechanism. 

Soon there after, Katritzky et al.6 suggested that mhrs could, in principle, proceed via three distinct routes which involve, respectively (i) a cyclic concerted transition state (117), (ii) a bicyclic intermediate (118), and (iii) an acyclic intermediate (119). 

The mechanism of the Chugaev elimination involves a cyclic, concerted transition state as originally proposed by Barton11 and Cram.12... 

Mechanistically the observed stereospecificity can be rationalized by a concerted, pericyclic reaction. In a one-step cycloaddition reaction the dienophile 8 adds 1,4 to the diene 7 via a six-membered cyclic, aromatic transition state 9, where three r-bonds are broken and one jr- and two cr-bonds are formed. The arrangement of the substituents relative to each other at the stereogenic centers of the reactants is retained in the product 10, as a result of the stereospecific y -addition. 

Pericyclic reactions are a class of reactions that include some of the most powerful synthetically useful reactions such as the Diels-Alder reaction. Pericyclic reactions often proceed with simultaneous reorganization of bonding electron pairs and involve a cyclic delocalized transition state. They differ from ionic or free radical reactions as there are no ionic or free radical intermediates formed during the course of the reaction. They proceed by one-step concerted mechanisms and have certain characteristic properties (although there are some exceptions to all these rules). 

In this solvent the reaction is catalyzed by small amounts of trimethyl-amine and especially pyridine (cf. 9). The same effect occurs in the reaction of iV -methylaniline with 2-iV -methylanilino-4,6-dichloro-s-triazine. In benzene solution, the amine hydrochloride is so insoluble that the reaction could be followed by recovery. of the salt. However, this precluded study mider Bitter and Zollinger s conditions of catalysis by strong mineral acids in the sense of Banks (acid-base pre-equilibrium in solution). Instead, a new catalytic effect was revealed when the influence of organic acids was tested. This was assumed to depend on the bifunctional character of these catalysts, which act as both a proton donor and an acceptor in the transition state. In striking agreement with this conclusion, a-pyridone is very reactive and o-nitrophenol is not. Furthermore, since neither y-pyridone nor -nitrophenol are active, the structure of the catalyst must meet the conformational requirements for a cyclic transition state. Probably a concerted process involving structure 10 in the rate-determining step... 

Amination of the deactivated carbanion of 4-benzylpyridine formed with excess sodamide presumably proceeds because the strong indirect deactivation is overcome by electrophilic attack by Na+ at the partially anionic azine-nitrogen and by concerted nucleophilic attack by H2N at the 2-position via a 6-membered cyclic transition state (75). However, in simple nucleophilic displacement a carbanion will be more deactivating than the corresponding alkyl group, as is true in general for anionic substituents and their non-ionic counterparts. 

Mechanistically the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction very likely is a concerted one-step process via a cyclic transition state. The transition state is less symmetric and more polar as for a Diels-Alder reaction however the symmetry of the frontier orbitals is similar. In order to describe the bonding of the 1,3-dipolar compound, e.g. diazomethane 4, several Lewis structures can be drawn that are resonance structures ... 

Like the Diels-Alder reaction discussed in Sections 14.4 and 14.5, the Claisen rearrangement reaction takes place through a pericyclic mechanism in which a concerted reorganization of bonding electrons occurs through a six-membered, cyclic transition state. The 6-allyl-2,4-cyclohexadienone intermediate then isomerizes to o-allylpbenol (Figure 18.1). 

Electrocyclic reaction (Section 30.3) A unimolecular peri-cyclic reaction in which a ring is formed or broken by a concerted reorganization of electrons through a cyclic transition state. For example, the cyciization of 1,3.5-hexatriene to yield 1,3-cyclohexadiene is an electrocyclic reaction. 

No single mechanism accounts for all the reactions. One pathway involves a concerted one-step process involving a cyclic transition state. This of necessity affords a c -product. Another possibility, more favoured in polar solvents, involves a cationic 5-coordinate intermediate [IrX(A)(CO)L2]+, which undergoes subsequent nucleophilic attack by B-. Other possibilities include a SN2 route, where the metal polarizes AB before generating the nucleophile, and radical routes. Studies are complicated by the fact that the thermodynamically more stable isolated product may not be the same as the kinetic product formed by initial addition. 

The evidence presented so far excludes the formation of dissociated ions as the principal precursor to sulfone, since such a mechanism would yield a mixture of two isomeric sulfones. Similarly, in the case of optically active ester a racemic product should be formed. The observed data are consistent with either an ion-pair mechanism or a more concerted cyclic intramolecular mechanism involving little change between the polarity of the ground state and transition state. Support for the second alternative was found from measurements of the substituent and solvent effects on the rate of reaction. 

There are, broadly speaking, three possible mechanisms that have been considered for the uncatalyzed Diels-Alder reaction. In mechanism a there is a cyclic six-centered transition state and no intermediate. The reaction is concerted and occurs in one step. In mechanism b, one end of the diene fastens to one end of the dienophile first to give a diradical, and then, in a second step, the other ends become fastened. A diradical formed in this manner must be a singlet that is, the... 

In this method, the orbital symmetry rules are related to the Hiickel aromaticity rule discussed in Chapter 2. Huckel s mle, which states that a cyclic system of electrons is aromatic (hence, stable) when it consists of 4n + 2 electrons, applies of course to molecules in their ground states. In applying the orbital symmetry principle, we are not concerned with ground states, but with transition states. In the present method, we do not examine the molecular orbitals themselves but rather the p orbitals before they overlap to form the MO. Such a set of p orbitals is called a basis set (Fig. 15.5). In investigating the possibility of a concerted reaction, we put the basis sets into the position they would occupy in the transition state. Figure 15.6 shows this for both the... 

The chemical reactions through cyclic transition states are controlled by the symmetry of the frontier orbitals [11]. At the symmetrical (Cs) six-membered ring transition state of Diels-Alder reaction between butadiene and ethylene, the HOMO of butadiene and the LUMO of ethylene (Scheme 18) are antisymmetric with respect to the reflection in the mirror plane (Scheme 24). The symmetry allows the frontier orbitals to have the same signs of the overlap integrals between the p-or-bital components at both reaction sites. The simultaneous interactions at the both sites promotes the frontier orbital interaction more than the interaction at one site of an acyclic transition state. This is also the case with interaction between the HOMO of ethylene and the LUMO of butadiene. The Diels-Alder reactions occur through the cyclic transition states in a concerted and stereospecific manner with retention of configuration of the reactants. 

Diels-Alder reactions are found to be little influenced by the introduction of radicals (cf. p. 300), or by changes in the polarity of the solvent they are thus unlikely to involve either radical or ion pair intermediates. They are found to proceed stereoselectively SYN with respect both to the diene and to the dienophile, and are believed to take place via a concerted pathway in which bond-formation and bond-breaking occur more or less simultaneously, though not necessarily to the same extent, in the transition state. This cyclic transition state is a planar, aromatic type, with consequent stabilisation because of the cyclic overlap that can occur between the six p orbitals of the constituent diene and dienophile. Such pericyclic reactions are considered further below (p. 341). 

Consideration of the feasibility of these shifts as concerted processes, i.e. via cyclic transition states, requires as usual a consideration of the symmetry of the orbitals involved. A model related to the transition state can be constructed by the device of assuming that the C—H a bond that is migrating can be broken down into a hydrogen Is orbital and a carbon 2p orbital. For the case where x = 1 in (36), the T.S. can then be considered as being made up from a pentadienyl radical (38), with a hydrogen atom (one electron in a Is orbital) migrating between the terminal carbon atoms of its Site system (i.e. a 6e system overall is involved) ... 

From a mechanistic point of view, two very general pathways can be envisaged for hydrogen transfer direct hydrogenation transfer, consisting of a concerted process that involves a six-membered cyclic transition state in which both the hydrogen donor and the acceptor are coordinated to the metal (1 in Scheme 22) and a hydridic route (2 in Scheme 22).116... 

The theoretical interpretation of the results was made (334) in terms of the molecular orbital perturbation theory, in particular, of the FMO theory (CNDO-2 method), using the model of the concerted formation of both new bonds through the cyclic transition state. In this study, the authors provided an explanation for the regioselectivity of the process and obtained a series of comparative reactivities of dipolarophiles (methyl acrylate > styrene), which is in agreement with the experimental data. However, in spite of similar tendencies, the experimental series of comparative reactivities of nitronates (249) toward methyl acrylate (250a) and styrene (250b) are not consistent with the calculated series (see Chart 3.17). This is attributed to the fact that calculation methods are insufficiently correct and the... 

In 1969 R.B. Woodward and R. Hoffmann developed a general theory of concerted reactions which proceed through a cyclic transition state process which they turned pericyclic. They used the concept of orbital symmetry to predict which types of cyclic transition state are energetically feasible. 

Originally very few types of such rearrangements were known e.g., Copes rearrangement, Claisen rearrangement and some 1, 5 hydrogen shift in some dienes, but now many others have been discovered. The common feature of such reactions is that they are concerted, uncatalysed and involve a bond migration through a cyclic transition state. 

These include a series of pericyclic reactions initiated from Si(7t,7t ). Pericyclic reactions are concerted reactions with a cyclic transition state. While in this transition state, a concerted rearrangement of electrons takes place, which causes o- and Jt-bonds to simultaneously break and form. 

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