Ethylenes cycloaddition

Cyclobutane.—Further reports of grandisol (90) synthesis include Magnus s full paper (Vol. 6, p. 22) and an almost identical Japanese report of an earlier synthesis (Vol. 3, p. 25) based upon a dihydropyranone-ethylene cycloaddition.A third synthesis utilizes cyclopropanation of 4-methoxy-3,6,6-trimethylcyclohexa-2,4-dienone to yield (91) followed by rearrangement of the a-oxycyclopropylcarbinyl cation of (91) to (92). After reduction of the cyclobutanone, second-order Beckmann cleavage of the cyclopentanone oxime gave (93) from which grandisol (90) was readily obtained. 

Similar results were obtained in ketene-ethylene cycloadditions. Evidence for biradicals comes from kinetic and product-determining secondary deuterium isotope effects in the addition of acrylonitrile to perdeuterio and 1,1-dideuterioallene, respectively, where the kinetic effect is only 4% but there is a 21% preference for formation of the product with deuterium on the exo methylene group (Scheme 6.39). ... 

The simplest of all Diels-Alder reactions cycloaddition of ethylene to 1 3 butadi ene does not proceed readily It has a high activation energy and a low reaction rate Substituents such as C=0 or C=N however when directly attached to the double bond of the dienophile increase its reactivity and compounds of this type give high yields of Diels-Alder adducts at modest temperatures... 

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... 

Contrast the Diels-Alder reaction with a cycloaddition reaction that looks superfl cially similar the combination of two ethylene molecules to give cyclobutane... 

HOMO of one ethylene mol ecule and the LUMO of an other do not have the proper symmetry to permit two O bonds to be formed in the same transition state for concerted cycloaddition... 

Figure 10 12 shows the interaction between the HOMO of one ethylene molecule and the LUMO of another In particular notice that two of the carbons that are to become ct bonded to each other m the product experience an antibondmg interaction during the cycloaddition process This raises the activation energy for cycloaddition and leads the reaction to be classified as a symmetry forbidden reaction Reaction were it to occur would take place slowly and by a mechanism m which the two new ct bonds are formed m separate steps rather than by way of a concerted process involving a sm gle transition state... 

Refer to the molecular orbital diagrams of allyl cation (Figure 10 13) and those presented earlier in this chapter for ethylene and 1 3 butadiene (Figures 10 9 and 10 10) to decide which of the following cycloaddition reactions are allowed and which are forbidden according to the Woodward-Floffmann rules... 

A large number of pyridazines are synthetically available from [44-2] cycloaddition reactions. In one general method, azo or diazo compounds are used as dienophiles, and a second approach is based on the reaction between 1,2,4,5-tetrazines and various unsaturated compounds. The most useful azo dienophile is a dialkyl azodicarboxylate which reacts with appropriate dienes to give reduced pyridazines and cinnolines (Scheme 89). With highly substituted dienes the normal cycloaddition reaction is prevented, and, if the ethylenic group in styrenes is substituted with aryl groups, indoles are formed preferentially. The cycloadduct with 2,3-pentadienal acetal is a tetrahydropyridazine derivative which has been used for the preparation of 2,5-diamino-2,5-dideoxyribose (80LA1307). 

Although photochemical cycloadditions have gained acceptance in synthetic chemistry, most such reactions are limited to a relatively small scale. The use of a 1000-watt street lamp permits the irradiation of up to 1 mol of substrate in less time than 0.2 mol can be irradiated with the conventional 450-watt lamps. Thus, under optimum conditions, the submitters were able to add ethylene to 3-methylcyclohexenone on a 20-g scale in 48 hr (801) with a 450-watt lamp with the apparatus described here 94 g of this enone was condensed with ethylene in 8 hr (91%). 

Photochemical [2 + 2] cycloaddition is a powerful way to produce cyclobutanes, which, in turn, are reactive synthesis intermediates. N-Methylpyrrole adds aldehydes via [2 -I- 2] photocycloaddition to give transient oxetanes with high regioselectivity Ring-opening produces 3-(oi-hydroxyalkyl)pyrroles which are oxidized easily to 3-arylpyrroles, such as 3-BUTYROYL-l-METHYL-PYRROLE. With a special apparatus, ethylene is conveniently added to 3-methyl-... 

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... 

Fig. 11.9. Symmetry properties of ethylene, butadiene, and cyclohexene orbitals with respect to cycloaddition.

When the orbitals have been classified with respect to symmetry, they can be arranged according to energy and the correlation lines can be drawn as in Fig. 11.10. From the orbital correlation diagram, it can be concluded that the thermal concerted cycloadditon reaction between butadiene and ethylene is allowed. All bonding levels of the reactants correlate with product ground-state orbitals. Extension of orbital correlation analysis to cycloaddition reactions involving other numbers of n electrons leads to the conclusion that the suprafacial-suprafacial addition is allowed for systems with 4n + 2 n electrons but forbidden for systems with 4n 7t electrons. 

Fig. 11.16. Concerted cycloaddition of a ketene and an olefin. The orbitals represented are the HOMO of the olefin and the LUMO of the ethylenic portion of the ketene.

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. 

The addition of maleic anhydride can occur by excitation of either dienone or the anhydride. It is tempting to ascribe the 4,5-adduct (264) to a reaction between the excited dienone (260) and unexcited maleic anhydride by analogy with the observed major products of ethylene addition [cf. (261), (262)]. The 6,7-adducts (265) and (266) would then imply that these cycloadditions proceed by way of excited maleic anhydride which adds preferentially to the more electron-rich y,5-double bond of the groundstate dienone. 

Fluorinaied dienophiles. Although ethylene reacts with butadiene to give a 99 98% yield of a Diels-Alder adduct [63], tetrattuoroethylene and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-difluoroethylene prefer to react with 1,3-butadiene via a [2+2] pathway to form almost exclusively cyclobutane adducts [61, 64] (equation 61). This obvious difference in the behavior of hydrocarbon ethylenes and fluorocarbon ethylenes is believed to result not from a lack of reactivity of the latter species toward [2+4] cycloadditions but rather from the fact that the rate of nonconcerted cyclobutane formation is greatly enhanced [65]... 

In a definitive study of butadiene s reaction with l,l-dichloro-2,2-difluoio-ethylene, Bartlett concluded that [2+4] adducts of acyclic dienes with fluorinated ethylenes are formed through a mixture of concerted and nonconcerted, diradical pathways [67] The degree of observed [2+4] cycloaddition of fluorinated ethylenes IS related to the relative amounts of transoid and cisoid conformers of the diene, with very considerable (i.e., 30%) Diels-Alder adduct being observed in competition with [2+2] reaction, for example, in the reaction of 1,1 -dichloro-2,2-difluoro-ethylene with cyclopentadiene [9, 68]... 

The above cycloaddition process consists of two separate [3-1-2] cycloaddition steps and represents a 1,3-2,4 addition of a multiple bond system to a hetero-1,3-diene [7S7]. The structure ot the azomethine imine intermediate has been proved unequivocally by X-ray analysis [195] Ethylene [194], acetylene [/iS2] . many alkyl- and aryl- as well sgemmal dialkyl- and diaryl-substituted alkenes [196,197, 198, 199], dienes [200], and alkynes [182, 201], certain cyclic alkenes [198, 199,... 

The cycloaddition of nitrones to enamines results in the formation of an isoxazolidine (179,180). The reaction of l-(N-pyrrolidino)- -phenyl-ethylene (133) with nitrone 134 producing isoxazolidine 135 illustrates this type of cycloaddition (180). 

Tile a-dithione 158 (dithiete 159) underwent a [4 + 2] cycloaddition with fra s-(l,2-dimethoxy)ethylene to give 197 in addition to reactions with HCN and CH2N2, which yielded 198 and 199, respectively (74JA3502). 

While (Z)-l,2-bis(phenylsulfonyl)ethylene (140) does not add to dienes such as furan, cyclopentadiene, cyclo-octatetraene, indene and /f-naphthol, ( )-l,2-bis(phenylsulfonyl)ethylene (141) is more reactive and the reaction with furan proceeds at room temperature for 2 h to give the adduct in 95% yield. The reactivity of dienophiles having sulfonyl group in the [4 + 2]cycloaddition is shown in equation 10393,101. 

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