Pericyclic Diels-Alder Reaction

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). 

Fig. 5.35 Geometry predicted by CASSCF ab initio calculations of the two possible transition structure geometries for the Diels-Alder reaction between ethene and butadiene. (Figure adapted from Houk KN, J Gonzalez and Y Li 1995. Pericyclic Reaction Transition States Passions and Punctilios 1935-1995. Accounts of Chemical Research 28 81-90.)...

Apart from the thoroughly studied aqueous Diels-Alder reaction, a limited number of other transformations have been reported to benefit considerably from the use of water. These include the aldol condensation , the benzoin condensation , the Baylis-Hillman reaction (tertiary-amine catalysed coupling of aldehydes with acrylic acid derivatives) and pericyclic reactions like the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition and the Qaisen rearrangement (see below). These reactions have one thing in common a negative volume of activation. This observation has tempted many authors to propose hydrophobic effects as primary cause of ftie observed rate enhancements. 

Mechanistic investigations have focused on the two pericyclic reactions, probably as a consequence of the close mechanistic relation to the so successful aqueous Diels-Alder reaction. A kinetic inquest into the effect of water on several 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions has been performed by Steiner , van... 

The most important pericyclic reaction in synthesis, indeed one of the most important of all synthetic methods, is the Diels-Alder reaction. We have seen this many times before. What are the clues for a Diels-Alder disconnection ... 

The mechanism of the Diels-Alder cycloaddition is different from that of other reactions we ve studied because it is neither polar nor radical. Rather, the Diels-Alder reaction is a pericyclic process. Pericyclic reactions, which we ll discuss in more detail in Chapter 30, take place in a single step by a cyclic redistribution of bonding electrons. The two reactants simply join together through a cyclic transition state in which the two new carbon-carbon bonds form at the same time. 

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). 

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. 

The Diels-Alder reaction is a pericyclic cycloaddition when bond-forming and bond-breaking processes are concerted in the six-membered transition state... 

Most Diels-Alder reactions, particularly the thermal ones and those involving apolar dienes and dienophiles, are described by a concerted mechanism [17]. The reaction between 1,3-butadiene and ethene is a prototype of concerted synchronous reactions that have been investigated both experimentally and theoretically [18]. A concerted unsymmetrical transition state has been invoked to justify the stereochemistry of AICI3-catalyzed cycloadditions of alkylcyclohexenones with methyl-butadienes [12]. The high syn stereospecificity of the reaction, the low solvent effect on the reaction rate, and the large negative values of both activation entropy and activation volume comprise the chemical evidence usually given in favor of a pericyclic Diels-Alder reaction. 

Pericyclic Diels-Alder reactions are suprafacial reactions and this manner of bond formation preserves in the cycloadduct the relative stereochemistry of the substituents at Ci and C4 and at Ci and C2 of the parents diene and dienophile, respectively (Scheme 1.7). The relative stereochemistry of the substituents in the... 

Keywords Diels-Alder reactions, dipolar cycloadditions, electrocyclic reactions, ene reactions, pericyclic reactions, sigmatropic rearrangements... 

Laschat S. Pericyclic Reactions in Biological Systems - Does Nature Know About the Diels-Alder Reaction Angew. Chem., hit. Ed. Engl. 1996 35 289-291... 

Okamura W. H., Curtin M. L. Pericyclization of Vinylallenes in Organic Synthesis on the Intramolecnlar Diels-Alder Reaction Synlett 1990 1 9... 

Danshefsky s diene [19] is the 1,3-butadiene with amethoxy group at the 1-position and a trimethylsiloxy group at the 3-position (Scheme 18). This diene and Lewis acids extended the scope of hetereo-Diels-Alder reactions with aldehydes [20], This diene reacts with virtually any aldehyde in the presence of Lewis acids whereas dienes usually react with only selected aldehydes bearing strongly electron accepting a-substituents. There are two (Diels-Alder and Mukaiyama aldol) reaction pathways (Scheme 18) identified for the Lewis acids catalyzed reactions of Danishefsky diene with aldehydes [21, 22]. The two pathways suggest that these reactions occur on the boundary between the delocahzation band (the pericyclic... 

Chapter 6 looks at concerted pericyclic reactions, including the Diels-Alder reaction, 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition, [3,3]- and [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements, and thermal elimination reactions. The carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions are emphasized and the stereoselectivity of the reactions is discussed in detail. 

Bertran, J., Branchadell, V., Oliva, A., Sodupe, M., 1998, Pericyclic Reactions The Diels-Alder Reaction in Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry, Schleyer, P. v. R. (Editor-in-Chief), Wiley, Chichester. 

An analogy can be drawn between pericyclic reactions in water and under high pressure. Water s internal pressure on hydrophobic substrates acts on the volume of activation of a reaction in the same way as an externally applied pressure does. Thus, the internal pressure of water influences the rates of pericyclic reactions in water in the same direction as external pressures. The use of salting-out salts will further increase the rate of pericyclic reactions. Recently, Kumar quantified the relationship between internal pressure and the rate of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction. A linear relationship between the two was observed.5... 

The effect of water molecules on pericyclic reactions can also be compared with the effects of Lewis acids on these reactions. The enhanced polarization of the transition state in these reactions would lead to stronger hydrogen bonds at the polar groups of the reactants, which will result in a substantial stabilization of the transition states in the same way Lewis acids do. A computer-simulation study on the Diels-Alder reaction of cyclopentadiene by Jorgensen indicated that this effect contributes about a factor of 10 to the rates.7... 

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). 

As pericyclic reactions are largely unaffected by polar reagents, solvent changes, radical initiators, etc., the only means of influencing them is thermally or photochemically. It is a significant feature of pericyclic reactions that these two influences often effect markedly different results, either in terms of whether a reaction can be induced to proceed readily (or at all), or in terms of the stereochemical course that it then follows. Thus the Diels-Alder reaction (cf. above), an example of a cycloaddition process, can normally be induced thermally but not photochemically, while the cycloaddition of two molecules of alkene, e.g. (4) to form a cyclobutane (5),... 

The combination of pericyclic transformations as cycloadditions, sigmatropic rearrangements, electrocydic reactions and ene reactions with each other, and also with non-pericyclic transformations, allows a very rapid increase in the complexity of products. As most of the pericyclic reactions run quite well under neutral or mild Lewis acid acidic conditions, many different set-ups are possible. The majority of the published pericyclic domino reactions deals with two successive cycloadditions, mostly as [4+2]/[4+2] combinations, but there are also [2+2], [2+5], [4+3] (Nazarov), [5+2], and [6+2] cycloadditions. Although there are many examples of the combination of hetero-Diels-Alder reactions with 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions (see Section 4.1), no examples could be found of a domino all-carbon-[4+2]/[3+2] cycloaddition. Co-catalyzed [2+2+2] cycloadditions will be discussed in Chapter 6. 

Since the number of domino processes which start with a Diels-Alder reaction is rather large, we have subdivided this section of the chapter according to the second step, which might be a second Diels-Alder reaction, a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition, or a sigmatropic rearrangement. However, there are also several examples where the following reaction is not a pericyclic but rather is an aldol reaction these examples will be discussed under the term Mixed Transformations . 

Baldwin and coworkers described an interesting and high-yielding pericyclic domino process, consisting of a Cope and a Diels-Alder reaction, which on thermal treatment of the tetraene 4-253 led to tricyclic compound 4-254 (Scheme 4.54) [89]. 

In this section are described those domino reactions which start with a retro-pericy-clic reaction. This may be a retro-Diels-Alder reaction, a retro-l,3-dipolar cycloaddition, or a retro-ene reaction, which is then usually followed by a pericyclic reaction as the second step. However, a combination is also possible with another type of transformation as, for example, an aldol reaction. 

Mesoxalates are highly reactive substrates because of their strongly polarized carbon-oxygen bond. They have been used in pericyclic processes (e.g. Diels-Alder reactions,8 ene reactions,9 [3+2]10 and [2+2]11 cycloadditions), in aldol12 and Wittig as well as Friedel-Crafts reactions.13 Further applications arise from the use of the corresponding imines in hetero Diels-Alder reactions14 and electrophilic cyclizations.15... 

Lipids from marine products have been studied less frequently. The detection of co-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids with 16,18 and 20 carbon atoms together with isoprenoid fatty acids (4,8,12-trimethyltetradecanoic acid and phytanic acid) and substantial quantities of bones from fish and molluscs has provided evidence for the processing of marine animal products in vessels [58 60]. C16, C18, and C20 co-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids are presumed to be formed during the heating of tri-unsaturated fatty acids (C16 3, C18 3 and C20 3), fatty acyl components of marine lipids, involving alkali isomerization, pericyclic (intermolecular Diels-Alder reaction) and aromatization reactions. 

Diels-Alder reaction, phase-change rule, pericyclic reactions, 447-450... 

The dienes and polyenes are compounds which intervene in a large number of organic reactions, as will be seen in different chapters of this book. Several excellent reviews have been devoted to theoretical studies about their reactivity, with special emphasis on the mechanism of pericyclic reactions3-5. As was mentioned in the introduction, this section will only treat, as an example, the Diels-Alder reaction, since it has been the most studied one by theoreticians. Our goal is not to cover all aspects, but instead to show the high potential and usefulness of theoretical methods in order to interpret and rationalize the experimental results. In the rest of the chapter we will concentrate on the last ab initio calculations. 

SCHEME 3. Comparison of van der Waals volumes of reaction and activation with the volumes of reaction and activation calculated for a pericyclic and stepwise Diels-Alder reaction of 1,3-butadiene with ethene... 

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