Cyclohexadienes electrocyclic ring opening

The cyclohexadiene-hexatriene system seems to be less complicated than the cyclobutene-butadiene system. Cyclohexadiene undergoes photochemical electrocyclic ring opening ... 

Results of studies of the electrocyclic ring opening of 3 fluoro-, 3,3-difluoro-, and 3-tnfluoromethylcyclobutene are consistent with the theoretical predictions of the effect of fluonne on this reaction [142] Surpnsingly, fluonnated analogues of hexa tnene-cyclohexadiene systems undergo complex rearrangements mainly via free radical mechanisms and not by electrocyclic nng operung as expected [143] (equation 35)... 

The article is organized as follows. In the next Section we present a brief outline of the theoretical background for the present work. Section 3 contains summaries of the SC models for the electronic mechanisms of the gas-phase Diels-Alder reaction between butadiene andethene [11] and the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of fulminic acid to ethyne [12]. In Section 4 we provide, for the first time, a description of the SC model for the electronic mechanism of the gas-phase disrotatory electrocyclic ring-opening of cyclohexadiene. Conclusions and final comments are presented in Section 5. 

It would be difficult, at this stage, to present a properly argued preference between schemes A and B in the Introduction as the more faithful representation for the disrotatory electrocyclic ring-opening of cyclohexadiene. Chemical intuition (at least that of the authors) would suggest scheme B, but scheme A is on the textbook pages and, as has been shown by the SC description of the 1,3-dipolar addition of fulminic acid to ethyne, a heterolytic scheme remains a definite possibility. 

The SC descriptions of the electronic mechanisms of the three six-electron pericyclic gas-phase reactions discussed in this paper (namely, the Diels-Alder reaction between butadiene and ethene [11], the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition offulminic acid to ethyne [12], and the disrotatory electrocyclic ring-opening of cyclohexadiene) take the theory much beyond the HMO and RHF levels employed in the formulation of the most popular MO-based treatments of pericyclic reactions, including the Woodward-Hoffmarm mles [1,2], Fukui s frontier orbital theory [3] and the Dewar-Zimmerman model [4—6]. The SC wavefunction maintains near-CASSCF quality throughout the range of reaction coordinate studied for each reaction but, in contrast to its CASSCF counterpart, it is very much easier to interpret and to visualize directly. 

A still more demanding ultrafast electron diffraction study of the electrocyclic ring-opening isomerization of 1,3-cyclohexadiene to l,3(Z),5-hexatriene was... 

Fig. 7. Disrotatory electrocyclic ring opening of 1,3-cyclohexadiene to 1,3,5-hexatriene. The excited state process, forbidden in the disrotatory mode, as indicated on the right, is allowed in the eonrotatory mode (not shown).

Figure 3. Symmetry-unique spin-coupled orbitals for the disrotatory electrocyclic ring-opening of cyclohexadiene.

The electrocyclic reactions of phenyl fulgides and l,8a-DHNs can be photo-induced by a conrotatory process. The electrocyclic ring-opening reaction of cyclohexadiene systems (l,8a-DHNs) can also be induced thermally via a disrota-tory process. 

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