Energy cyclobutane

Cyclopropane has to be planar and therefore has very strained bond angles of 60° and a great deal of torsional energy. Cyclobutane and cyclopentane can adopt non-planar (puckered) shapes that decrease the torsional strain by staggering the C—H bonds. However, this is at the expense of angle strain and the butterfly and envelope shapes represent the best compromise between the two opposing effects. 

The photosensitized dimerization of isoprene in the presence of henzil has been investigated. Mixtures of substituted cyclobutanes, cyclohexenes, and cyclooctadienes were formed and identified (53). The reaction is beheved to proceed by formation of a reactive triplet intermediate. The energy for this triplet state presumably is obtained by interaction with the photoexcited henzil species. Under other conditions, photolysis results in the formation of a methylcydobutene (54,55). 

Cyclobutane adopts a puckered conformation in which substituents then occupy axial-like or equatorial-like positions. 1,3-Disubstituted cyclobutanes show small energy preferences for the cis isomer since this places both substituents in equatorial-like positions. The energy differences and the barrier to inversion are both smaller than in cyclohexane. 

The complementary relationship between thermal and photochemical reactions can be illustrated by considering some of the same reaction types discussed in Chapter 11 and applying orbital symmetry considerations to the photochemical mode of reaction. The case of [2ti + 2ti] cycloaddition of two alkenes can serve as an example. This reaction was classified as a forbidden thermal reaction (Section 11.3) The correlation diagram for cycloaddition of two ethylene molecules (Fig. 13.2) shows that the ground-state molecules would lead to an excited state of cyclobutane and that the cycloaddition would therefore involve a prohibitive thermal activation energy. 

Such a structure implies that there would be a barrier to rotation about the C(2)—C(3) bond and would explain why the s-trans and s-cis conformers lead to different excited states. Another result that can be explained in terms of the two noninterconverting excited states is the dependence of the ratio of [2 + 2] and [2 + 4] addition products on sensitizer energy. The s-Z geometry is suitable for cyclohexene formation, but the s-E is not. The excitation energy for the s-Z state is slightly lower than that for the s-E. With low-energy sensitizers, therefore, the s-Z excited state is formed preferentially, and the ratio of cyclohexene to cyclobutane product increases. ... 

Identify the lowest-energy conformer from among those provided cyclopropane, planar and puckered cyclobutane, planar and puckered cyclopentane and chair, half-chair, boat and twist-boat cyclohexane. (If... 

For the 2-1-2 pathway the FMO sum becomes (ab — ac) = a b — c) while for the 4 -I- 2 reaction it is (ab-I-ab) — a (2b). As (2b) > (b — c), it is clear that the 4 + 2 reaction has the largest stabilization, and therefore increases least in energy in the initial stages of the reaction (eq. (15.1), remembering that the steric repulsion will cause a net increase in energy). Consequently the 4 - - 2 reaction should have the lowest activation energy, and therefore occur easier than the 2-1-2. This is indeed what is observed, the Diels-Alder reaction occurs readily, but cyclobutane formation is not observed between non-polar dienes and dieneophiles. 

At high temperatures, the decomposition of cyclobutane is a first-order reaction. Its activation energy is 262kJ/mol. At 477°C, its half-life is 5.00 min. What is its half-life (in seconds) at 527°C ... 

The modification of molecular conformation from the highly strained non-isolable dimer molecule to the V-shaped dimer molecule (6 OPr-dimer) is explained in terms of relaxation of the strain energy due to the bond angle in the non-isolable dimer, which accumulated during the cyclobutane formation. Therefore, strictly speaking, the process going from the non-isolable dimer into the V-shaped dimer (6 OPr-dimer) is not a... 

Another explanation has been offered to explain the large proportion of cyclobutane derivatives produced by low-energy sensitizers, especially for the anthracene derivatives.<17) This is that energy transfer to diene occurs from the second excited triplet state of the sensitizer rather than the first. Experiments using a large number of anthracene derivatives as sensitizers... 

The product distribution in this reaction was found to be dependent upon the triplet energy of the sensitizer. Variation of the relative amounts of cyclobutanes (32) and (33) to cyclohexene (34) with sensitizer triplet energy... 

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