Electron dienophiles

Retrocycloaddition Many cycloaddition reactions require moderate heating to overcome the activation energy, but if it is heated too much the equilibrium will favour cycloreversion or retrocycloaddition. For example, cyclopentadiene slowly undergoes cycloaddition with itself one molecule of cyclopentadiene acts as a [4ir]-electrons diene and the other as a [2tt]-electrons dienophile. The product is an endo-tricyclo[5.2.1.0]deca-3,8-diene (8.4), often called dicyclopentadiene. The product 8.4 gives back cyclopentadiene on heating at 150° C for an hour. 

The three-membered ring opens using the lone pair on nitrogen in a four-electron conrotatory electrocyclic process. One phenyl group must rotate inwards and the other outwards. Then a cycloaddition of the four-electron 1,3-dipole onto the two-electron dienophile goes without change of stereochemistry. The ester groups remain cis and the phenyls must be one up and one down. 

FMO theory requires that a HOMO of one reactant has to be correlated with the LUMO of the other reactant. The decision between the two alternatives - i.e., from which reactant the HOMO should be taken - is made on the basis of which is the smaller energy difference in our case the HOMO of the electron rich diene, 3.1, has to be correlated with the LUMO of the electron-poor dienophile, 3.2. The smaller this HOMO-LUMO gap, the higher the reactivity will be. With the HOMO and LUMO fixed, the orbital coefficients of these two orbitals can explain the regios-electivity of the reaction, which strongly favors the formation of 3.3 over 3.4. 

The mechanism of the diene synthesis appears to involve an electron transfer from the diene to the dienophile, .e., it is initiated by an ionic reaction. The following scheme may represent the addition of 2 3-dimethylbutadiene to maleic anhydride ... 

D-A rxns with electron rich dienes and electron defficient dienophiles work the best. 

Some electron deficient dienophiles are quinones, maleic ahydride, nitroalkenes, a,p-unsaturated ketones, esters and nitriles. 

D-A rxns with electron deficient dienes and electron rich dienophiles also work well. These are refered to as reverse demand D-A rxns. 

Diels-Alder reactions can be divided into normal electron demand and inverse electron demand additions. This distinction is based on the way the rate of the reaction responds to the introduction of electron withdrawing and electron donating substituents. Normal electron demand Diels-Alder reactions are promoted by electron donating substituents on the diene and electron withdrawii substituents on the dienophile. In contrast, inverse electron demand reactions are accelerated by electron withdrawing substituents on the diene and electron donating ones on the dienophile. There also exists an intermediate class, the neutral Diels-Alder reaction, that is accelerated by both electron withdrawing and donating substituents. 

Hydrogen bonding of water to the activating group of (for normal-electron demand Diels-Alder reactions) the dienophile constitutes the second important effect". Hydrogen bonds strengthen the electron-withdrawing capacity of this functionality and thereby decrease the HOMO-LUMO gap... 

The fact that good correlations are observed with d" rather than with a, is indicative of a strong infiuence of the substituent through a direct resonance interaction with a positive charge in the reacting system. The p-values are positive, which is expected for substituted dienophiles in a normal electron demand Diels-Alder reaction. Furthermore, the p-values do not exceed unity and are not significantly different from literature values reported for the uncatalysed reaction. It is tempting to... 

To deduce the identity of the diene and dienophile that lead to a particular Diels-Alder adduct we use curved arrows in the reverse fashion to undo the cyclohexene derivative Start with the tt component of the double bond in the SIX membered ring and move electrons in pairs... 

Let us now examine the Diels-Alder cycloaddition from a molecular orbital perspective Chemical experience such as the observation that the substituents that increase the reac tivity of a dienophile tend to be those that attract electrons suggests that electrons flow from the diene to the dienophile during the reaction Thus the orbitals to be considered are the HOMO of the diene and the LUMO of the dienophile As shown m Figure 10 11 for the case of ethylene and 1 3 butadiene the symmetry properties of the HOMO of the diene and the LUMO of the dienophile permit bond formation between the ends of the diene system and the two carbons of the dienophile double bond because the necessary orbitals overlap m phase with each other Cycloaddition of a diene and an alkene is said to be a symmetry allowed reaction... 

Alkylfurans, halofurans, alkoxyfurans, furfuryl ester and ethers, and furfural diacetate [613-75-2] behave similarly. Furans containing electron withdrawing constituents, for example, furfural, 2-furoic acid, and nitrofurans, fail as dienes even with very strong dienophiles. 

Endo adducts are usually favored by iateractions between the double bonds of the diene and the carbonyl groups of the dienophile. As was mentioned ia the section on alkylation, the reaction of pyrrole compounds and maleic anhydride results ia a substitution at the 2-position of the pyrrole ring (34,44). Thiophene [110-02-1] forms a cycloaddition adduct with maleic anhydride but only under severe pressures and around 100°C (45). Addition of electron-withdrawiag substituents about the double bond of maleic anhydride increases rates of cycloaddition. Both a-(carbomethoxy)maleic anhydride [69327-00-0] and a-(phenylsulfonyl) maleic anhydride [120789-76-6] react with 1,3-dienes, styrenes, and vinyl ethers much faster than tetracyanoethylene [670-54-2] (46). 

More recently, Cheeseman and coworkers have investigated cycloaddition reactions of 2,6-dioxypyrazines (80jCS(Pl)1603). 2,6-Dihydroxy-3,5-diphenylpyrazine (77) reacts with electron deficient dienophiles such as iV-phenylmaleimide, diethyl maleate and diethyl fumarate (Scheme 26) to yield adducts of the 3,8-diazabicyclo[3.2.1]octane class such as (78). This reaction is believed to proceed by way of the betaine (79) and has precedent (69AG(E)604) in that photolysis of the bicyclic aziridine (80) generates analogous betaines which have been trapped in cycloaddition reactions. 

The bis(diene) (46) adds dienophiles preferentially on the side syn to the oxirane moiety (Scheme 35) (80X149). This may be due to formation of a charge-transfer complex by donation of electron density from oxygen into an antibonding orbital on the dienophile. 

Cycloaddition involves the combination of two molecules in such a way that a new ring is formed. The principles of conservation of orbital symmetry also apply to concerted cycloaddition reactions and to the reverse, concerted fragmentation of one molecule into two or more smaller components (cycloreversion). The most important cycloaddition reaction from the point of view of synthesis is the Diels-Alder reaction. This reaction has been the object of extensive theoretical and mechanistic study, as well as synthetic application. The Diels-Alder reaction is the addition of an alkene to a diene to form a cyclohexene. It is called a [47t + 27c]-cycloaddition reaction because four tc electrons from the diene and the two n electrons from the alkene (which is called the dienophile) are directly involved in the bonding change. For most systems, the reactivity pattern, regioselectivity, and stereoselectivity are consistent with describing the reaction as a concerted process. In particular, the reaction is a stereospecific syn (suprafacial) addition with respect to both the alkene and the diene. This stereospecificity has been demonstrated with many substituted dienes and alkenes and also holds for the simplest possible example of the reaction, that of ethylene with butadiene ... 

How do orbital symmetry requirements relate to [4tc - - 2tc] and other cycloaddition reactions Let us constmct a correlation diagram for the addition of butadiene and ethylene to give cyclohexene. For concerted addition to occur, the diene must adopt an s-cis conformation. Because the electrons that are involved are the n electrons in both the diene and dienophile, it is expected that the reaction must occur via a face-to-face rather than edge-to-edge orientation. When this orientation of the reacting complex and transition state is adopted, it can be seen that a plane of symmetry perpendicular to the planes of the... 

The same conclusions are drawn by analysis of the frontier orbitals involved in cycloadditions. For the most common case of the Diels-Alder reaction, which involves dienophiles with electron-attracting substituents, the frontier orbitals are l/2 of the diene (which is the HOMO) and n of the dienophile (which is the LUMO). Reaction occurs by interaction of the HOMO and LUMO, which can be seen from the illustration below to be allowed. 

It has long been known that the Diels-Alder reaction is particularly efficient and rapid when the dienophile contains one or more electron-attracting groups. These substituent effects are illustrated by the data in Table 11.3. In the case of the diene, reactivity is increased by electron-releasing substituents. Some illustrative data are given in Table 11.4. 

More complete interpretations of Diels-Alder regioselectivity have been developed. MO results can be analyzed from an electrostatic perspective by calculating potentials at the various atoms in the diene and dienophile. These results give a more quantitatively accurate estimate of the substituent effects. Diels-Alder regioselectivity can also be accounted for in terms of HSAB theory (see Section 1.2.3). The expectation would be that the most polarizable (softest) atoms would lead to bond formation and that regioselectivity would reflect the best mateh between the diene and dienophile termini. These ideas have been applied using 3-2IG computations. The results are in agreement with the ortho rule for normal-electron-demand Diels-Alder reactions. ... 

Fluorine-substituted heterodienes are particularly prone to inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reactions with electron-rich dienophiles, as can be seen from the examples in equations 94-97 [113, 114, 115, 116, 117]... 

Although hexafluoro-l,3-butadiene is better known for its [2+2] reactions, its Diels-Alder reactions, particularly with electron-deficient alkenes such as acrylonitrile and perfluoropropene, are not unknown [9] The first report of a Diels-Alder reaction is with an acetylenic dienophile Although the major product of Us reaction with phenylacetylene is its [2+2] adduct, a 3 5% yield of products of a Diels-Alder reaction is also observed [123] (equation 103)... 

Perfluoroalkyl groups adjacent to multiple bond systems lower the frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) Therefore, cycloaddition reactions preferentially occur with electron-rich multiple-bond systems The preference of bis(trifluoromethyl)-substituted hetero-l,3-dienes for polar reacuons makes them excellent model compounds for developing new types of diene reactions deviating from the well documented Diels-Alder scheme (pathway 1) A systematic study of the reactions of diene (1 =2-3=4)-dienophile (5=6) combinations reveals new synthetic possibilities that have not yet been fully exploited as tools for preparative organic cherrustry (equation 25)... 

The dienophilic character of imines parallels that of carbonyl compounds Consequently, electron deficient imtnes are the most reactive dienophiles of this class, particularly those having C perfluoroalkyl [5, 146, 150, 228], /V-acyl [/2i5 127], or A/-sulfonyl groups [148, 229 230]... 

One of the features of Diels-Alder reactions with most alkyl and aryl nitriles that has made them rather unattractive as dienophiles is the requirement of very high reaction temperatures Again, only when electron-withdrawing substituents are directly bonded to the nitnle function do [4+2] cycloaddition reactions occur at reasonably low temperatures [ 48, 231, 232] A high yield [4+2] cycloaddition was observed on reaction of 4,4-bis(trifluoromethyl) 1 thia-3-aza-l,3-butadienes with trifluoroacetonitrile at 150 °C [225]... 

---