Cyclobutadienes—

Ni(r -C4Ph4)2 is notable as the first metal sandwich based on two C4 rings [completing the series Cr(r -C6R6)2, Fe(rj-C5R5)2 and Ni(rj-C4R4)2] and also because its isolation (m.p. 404 °C ) defied theoretical calculations suggesting that d10 complexes of cyclobutadienes would not be 

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Colourless liquid with alkenic properties. Many substituted derivatives are known, the preferred method of preparation being the addition of an alkyne to a cyclobutadiene. 

Stabilizing resonances also occur in other systems. Some well-known ones are the allyl radical and square cyclobutadiene. It has been shown that in these cases, the ground-state wave function is constructed from the out-of-phase combination of the two components [24,30]. In Section HI, it is shown that this is also a necessary result of Pauli s principle and the permutational symmetry of the polyelectronic wave function When the number of electron pairs exchanged in a two-state system is even, the ground state is the out-of-phase combination [28]. Three electrons may be considered as two electron pairs, one of which is half-populated. When both electron pahs are fully populated, an antiaromatic system arises ("Section HI). 

A more general classification considers the phase of the total electronic wave function [13]. We have treated the case of cyclic polyenes in detail [28,48,49] and showed that for Hiickel systems the ground state may be considered as the combination of two Kekule structures. If the number of electron pairs in the system is odd, the ground state is the in-phase combination, and the system is aromatic. If the number of electron pairs is even (as in cyclobutadiene, pentalene, etc.), the ground state is the out-of-phase combination, and the system is antiaromatic. These ideas are in line with previous work on specific systems [40,50]. 

The Phase Change Upon CycUzadou of Different s-cis Cyclobutadiene Isomers ... 

THE cvcLOBUTADENE-TETRAHEDRANE SYSTEM. A related reaction is the photoisomerization of cyclobutadiene (CBD). It was found that unsubstituted CBD does not react in an argon matrix upon irradiation, while the tri-butyl substituted derivative forms the corresponding tetrahedrane [86,87]. These results may be understood on the basis of a conical intersection enclosed by the loop shown in Figure 37. The analogy with the butadiene loop (Fig. 13) is obvious. The two CBDs and the biradical shown in the figure are the three anchors in this system. With small substituents, the two lobes containing the lone electrons can be far... 

Within the cubane synthesis the initially produced cyclobutadiene moiety (see p. 329) is only stable as an iron(O) complex (M. Avram, 1964 G.F. Emerson, 1965 M.P. Cava, 1967). When this complex is destroyed by oxidation with cerium(lV) in the presence of a dienophilic quinone derivative, the cycloaddition takes place immediately. Irradiation leads to a further cyclobutane ring closure. The cubane synthesis also exemplifies another general approach to cyclobutane derivatives. This starts with cyclopentanone or cyclohexane-dione derivatives which are brominated and treated with strong base. A Favorskii rearrangement then leads to ring contraction (J.C. Barborak, 1966). 

Cyclobutadiene itself is not stable at room temperature. Several derivatives with stabilizing groups have been prepared by the acid-catalyzed dimerization of alkjmes (R. Gompper, 1975). Less substituted cyclobutadienes could be obtained by photolytic reactions in solid matrix at low temperatures (G. Maier, 1973, 1974). 

Cava, M. P. Mitchell, M. J. 1967, Cyclobutadiene and Related Compounds, Academic Press New York London... 

In addition to benzene and naphthalene derivatives, heteroaromatic compounds such as ferrocene[232, furan, thiophene, selenophene[233,234], and cyclobutadiene iron carbonyl complexpSS] react with alkenes to give vinyl heterocydes. The ease of the reaction of styrene with sub.stituted benzenes to give stilbene derivatives 260 increases in the order benzene < naphthalene < ferrocene < furan. The effect of substituents in this reaction is similar to that in the electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions[236]. 

During our discussion of benzene and its derivatives it may have occurred to you that cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene might be stabilized by cyclic rr electron delocal ization m a manner analogous to that of benzene... 

The same thought occurred to early chemists However the complete absence of natu rally occurring compounds based on cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene contrasted starkly with the abundance of compounds containing a benzene unit Attempts to syn thesize cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene met with failure and reinforced the grow mg conviction that these compounds would prove to be quite unlike benzene if m fact they could be isolated at all... 

Cyclobutadiene escaped chemical charactenzation for more than 100 years Despite numerous attempts all synthetic efforts met with failure It became apparent not only that cyclobutadiene was not aromatic but that it was exceedingly unstable Beginning m the 1950s a variety of novel techniques succeeded m generating cyclobutadiene as a transient reactive intermediate... 

High level molecular orbital calculations of cyclobutadiene itself and experimen tally measured bond distances of a stable highly substituted derivative both reveal a pat tern of alternating short and long bonds characteristic of a rectangular rather than square geometry... 

Thus cyclobutadiene like cyclooctatetraene is not aromatic More than this cyclo butadiene is even less stable than its Lewis structure would suggest It belongs to a class of compounds called antiaromatic An antiaromatic compound is one that is destabi lized by cyclic conjugation... 

One of molecular orbital theories early successes came m 1931 when Erich Huckel dis covered an interesting pattern m the tt orbital energy levels of benzene cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene By limiting his analysis to monocyclic conjugated polyenes and restricting the structures to planar geometries Huckel found that whether a hydrocarbon of this type was aromatic depended on its number of tt electrons He set forth what we now call Huckel s rule... 

Benzene cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene provide clear examples of Huckel s rule Benzene with six tt electrons is a An + 2) system and is predicted to be aromatic by the rule Square cyclobutadiene and planar cyclooctatetraene are An systems with four and eight tt electrons respectively and are antiaromatic... 

FIGURE 11 13 Frost s circle and the TT molecular orbitals of (a) square cyclobutadiene (b) ben zene and (c) planar cyclooctatetraene... 

In the next section we 11 explore Huckel s rule for values of n greater than 1 to see how it can be extended beyond cyclobutadiene benzene and cyclooctatetraene... 

The general term annulene has been coined to apply to completely conjugated mono cyclic hydrocarbons with more than six carbons Cyclobutadiene and benzene retain then-names but higher members of the group are named [jcjannulene where x is the number of carbons m the ring Thus cyclooctatetraene becomes [8]annulene cyclodecapentaene becomes [10] annulene and so on... 

Section 11 18 Although cychc conjugation is a necessary requirement for aromaticity this alone is not sufficient If it were cyclobutadiene and cycloocta tetraene would be aromatic They are not... 

Section 11 19 An additional requirement for aromaticity is that the number of rr elec Irons m conjugated planar monocyclic species must be equal to An + 2 where n is an integer This is called Huckel s rule Benzene with six TT electrons satisfies Huckel s rule for n = 1 Square cyclobutadiene (four TT electrons) and planar cyclooctatetraene (eight rr electrons) do not Both are examples of systems with An rr electrons and are antiaromatic... 

For some systems a single determinant (SCFcalculation) is insufficient to describe the electronic wave function. For example, square cyclobutadiene and twisted ethylene require at least two configurations to describe their ground states. To allow several configurations to be used, a multi-electron configuration interaction technique has been implemented in HyperChem. 

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