Cyclopropyl cations, electrocyclic ring-opening

Other factors which affect the case of electrocyclic ring opening include the nature of substituents which can stabilize or destabilize the development of possible charge and the release of strain in small cyclic systems. Thus different stereochemistries have been observed in the ring opening of cyclopropyl derivatives. All cis derivatives generate an all-cis allyl cation but the anti derivatives will form the all trans cation. 

In the first step, Ag+ promotes the departure of Cl- to give a cyclopropyl carbocation. This undergoes two-electron disrotatory electrocyclic ring opening to give the chloroallylic cation, in which the empty orbital is localized on Cl and C3. Then 09 can add to C3 desilylation then gives the product. 

The relative rates for electrocyclic ring openings of cyclopropyl ions [200] are shown in Eqs (173,174). For the cations the faster rates are exhibited by compounds in which an acceptor is directly bonded to the electron deficient center (a-a arrangement), whereas precursors with a donor substituent at the center open most slowly. 

On the other hand, cation formation by decarboxylation of an acyloxonium cation RC02+ is supported by the partial stereospecificity observed in the electrolysis of cis- and trans-bicyclo [3.1.0] hexane-3-carboxylic acid 2°5 and the electrocyclic ring opening in the anodic oxidation of 3-methyl-2-phenylcyclopro-panecarboxylate (22, 23) to cyclopropyl methyl ether (24, 25) and allylic ethers (26, 27) (Eq. (97)) 206). 

The product would be a cyclopropyl cation. Now, in fact, it is the cyclopropyl cations that undergo this reaction (very readily indeed—cyclopropyl cations are virtually unobservable) because ring strain encourages them to undergo electrocyclic ring opening to give allyl cations. 

Cyclopropenes are readily cleaved by acids. The reactions are rationalized either by initial protonation of the double bond and subsequent electrocyclic ring-opening of the cyclopropyl cation thus formed (path a, equation 82), or by protonation of a cyclopropene o bond to give the allylic cation more directly (path b, equation 82) The final products of reaction are derived from nucleophilic capture of the allyl ion. 

Due to the strain imposed by the three-membered ring, the cyclopropyl cation is not a stable intermediate and electrocyclic ring opening occurs readily. Therefore, in the solvolysis of cyclopropyl tosylate in acetic acid, allyl acetate is obtained rather than cyclopropyl acetate. Solvolysis reactions of other cyclopropyl halides, sulphonates, and diazotization of cyclopropylamine in aqueous solution also give the allylic products. 

This corresponds to the electrocyclic ring-opening of the cyclopropyl cation the preferred reaction pathways should involve + 2 ] or [ jOa + 2a] interactions, (Equation 6.1). In simple unfused ring systems the evidence for disrotatory scission comes from kinetic measurements (see below). The stereochemical test is not available because of the interception of the allyl cation by a counter-ion, (Equation 6.2). However, when the cyclopropyl cation is part of a bicyclic system, for example (1), it is found that electrocyclic cleavage occurs readily even when the number n has the small value of 3 or 4. In these circumstances the conrotatory mode, which would yield the unstable trans-... 

Fonnation of allylic products is characteristic of solvolytic reactions of other cyclopropyl halides and sulfonates. Similarly, diazotization of cyclopropylamine in aqueous solution gives allyl alcohol. The ring opening of a cyclopropyl cation is an electrocyclic process of the 4 + 2 type, where n equals zero. It should therefore be a disrotatory process. There is another facet to the stereochemistry in substituted cyclopropyl systems. Note that for a cri-2,3-dimethylcyclopropyl cation, for example, two different disrotatory modes are possible, leading to conformationally distinct allyl cations ... 

The electrocyclic reactions of 3-membered rings, cyclopropyl cation and cyclopropyl anion, may be treated as special cases of the general reaction. Thus the cyclopropyl cation opens to the allyl cation in a disrotatory manner (i.e., allyl cation, n = 0), and the cyclopropyl anion opens thermally to the allyl anion in a conrotatory manner (i.e., allyl anion, m = 1). Heterocyclic systems isoelectronic to cyclopropyl anion, namely oxiranes, thiiranes, and aziridines, have also been shown experimentally and theoretically to open in a conrotatory manner [300]. 

The ring opening of cyclopropyl cations (pp. 345, 1076) is an electrocyclic reaction and is governed by the orbital symmetry rules.389 For this case we invoke the rule that the o bond opens in such a way that the resulting/ orbitals have the symmetry of the highest occupied orbital of the product, in this case, an allylic cation. We may recall that an allylic system has three molecular orbitals (p. 32). For the cation, with only two electrons, the highest occupied orbital is the one of the lowest energy (A). Thus, the cyclopropyl cation must... 

The three-membered ring of the cycloproparenes is opened easily by an electrophile and the attack can be at either the a or the n framework. The reactions with halogens (non-photochemical)58-59,61 and acids250 give rise to benzyl derivatives that are best accounted for by 7t capture of the electrophile (E+) at the bridge, electrocyclic opening of the cyclopropyl cation to benzyl cation (path a, Scheme 21) and capture by the nucleophile. 

Initial interest in the solvolyses of cyclopropyl derivatives stemmed from the observation that they underwent solvolysis with concerted ring-opening , and that the reaction was strongly dependent on the nature and stereochemistry of substituents on the ring. This was explained by Woodward and Hoffmann who predicted from orbital symmetry considerations that the electrocyclic transformation in which a cyclopropyl carbocation is converted to an allyl cation should occur in a disrotatory fashion. Also, the particular disrotatory path a given system will take should be dependent on the stereochemistry of the leaving group. This is illustrated as follows. 

It was shown that the cyclopropyl cation is not an intermediate but that ring-opening occurs simultaneously with loss of tosylate. Prediction and experiments showed that for this electrocyclic transformation, susceptible to treatment by the Woodward-Hoffmann rules , the substituents cis to the leaving group rotate inwardly and substituents trans to the leaving group rotate outwardly (equation 2). 

All these facts are perfectly consistent with solution chemistry results showing the essentially barrierless electrocyclic disrotatory ring opening of cyclopropyl cations... 

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