Orbital controlled interaction

In the opposite case, when at least for one pair of orbitals, , => ,), the orbital interaction becomes predominant (orbitally controlled interaction), and one can approximate the predominant interaction of degenerate orbitals as... 

Another aspect of qualitative application of MO theory is the analysis of interactions of the orbitals in reacting molecules. As molecules approach one another and reaction proceeds, there is a mutual perturbation of the orbitals. This process continues until the reaction is complete and the new product (or intermediate in a multistep reaction) is formed. PMO theory incorporates the concept of frontier orbital control. This concept proposes that the most important interactions will be between a particular pair of orbitals. These orbitals are the highest filled oihital of one reactant (the HOMO, highest occupied molecular oihital) and the lowest unfilled (LUMO, lowest unoccupied molecular oihital) orbital of the other reactant. The basis for concentrating attention on these two orbitals is that they will be the closest in energy of the interacting orbitals. A basic postulate of PMO... 

These concepts play an important role in the Hard and Soft Acid and Base (HSAB) principle, which states that hard acids prefer to react with hard bases, and vice versa. By means of Koopmann s theorem (Section 3.4) the hardness is related to the HOMO-LUMO energy difference, i.e. a small gap indicates a soft molecule. From second-order perturbation theory it also follows that a small gap between occupied and unoccupied orbitals will give a large contribution to the polarizability (Section 10.6), i.e. softness is a measure of how easily the electron density can be distorted by external fields, for example those generated by another molecule. In terms of the perturbation equation (15.1), a hard-hard interaction is primarily charge controlled, while a soft-soft interaction is orbital controlled. Both FMO and HSAB theories may be considered as being limiting cases of chemical reactivity described by the Fukui ftinction. 

A fundament of the quantum chemical standpoint is that structure and reactivity are correlated. When using quantum chemical reactivity parameters for quantifying relationships between structure and reactivity one has the advantage of being able to describe the nature of the structural influences in a direct manner, without empirical assumptions. This is especially valid for the so-called Salem-Klopman equation. It allows the differentiation between the charge and the orbital controlled portions of the interaction between reactants. This was shown by the investigation of the interaction between the Lewis acid with complex counterions 18> (see part 4.4). 

The carbonyl n orbital is also assumed to be unsymmetrized arising from the out-of-phase interaction of the orbital attached to the more electron-donating aryl group (9 and 10). These unsymmetrizations of the carbonyl k orbital correspond well to syn addition (9) and anti addition (10), respectively. Thus, the electron-donation of the p-a orbitals controls the facial selectivities. The cyclopentane system was more sensitive to stereoelectronic effects, showing larger induced biases, than the adamantanone system [63]. 

As mentioned above, the unpaired electrons of diradicals may interact with each other through bonds. The orbital phase relationships between the involved orbitals control the effectiveness of the cyclic orbital interactions underlying the through-bond coupling. 

Self-consistent field molecular orbital calculations by Fenske and coworkers have confirmed that nucleophilic additions to Fischer and related complexes [e.g., (CO)sCr=CXY, (T)5-C5H5)(CO)2Mn=CXY], are frontier orbital-controlled rather than charge-controlled reactions (7-9). Interaction of the HOMO of the nucleophile with the carbene complex LUMO (localized on Ca) destroys the metal-carbon w-interaction and converts the bond to a single one. 

The preferred orientation for electrophiles is out of the plane defined by the Y-S-Z bonds, and about 20° from the normal (n) to the plane [50], whereas nucleophiles tend to lie in the plane, and cluster close to the line defined by the extension of the Y-S (or Z-S) bond. Similar interactions have been observed for selenium (Ramasubbu and Parthasarathy, 1984). The conclusion, as before, is that these interactions are frontier-orbital controlled, with the HOMO being a sulphur lone pair, and the LUMO an antibonding o- C-y(Z) orbital. 

The reaction mechanism proposed for the LiBr/NEta induced azomethine ylide cycloadditions to a,p-unsaturated carbonyl acceptors is illustrated in Scheme 11.10. The ( , )-ylides, reversibly generated from the imine esters, interact with acceptors under frontier orbital control, and the lithium atom of ylides coordinates with the carbonyl oxygen of the acceptors. Either through a direct cycloaddition (path a) or a sequence of Michael addition-intramolecular cyclization (path b), the cycloadducts are produced with endo- and regioselectivity. Path b is more likely, since in some cases Michael adducts are isolated. 

A delicate balance of charge and orbital effects can also account for the dependence of selectivity on anion type. The central assumption is that nucleophiles with a higher lying HOMO (softer) should give a better orbital energy match in the HOMO-LUMO interaction and increase the orbital control term. For the toluene ligand, this predicts strong ortho-meta selectivity for more reactive anions. 

In the donor-acceptor interaction, the acceptor provides its lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and the donor participates at the expense of its highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). These orbitals are frontier orbitals. In the corresponding ion radicals, the distribution of an unpaired electron proceeds, naturally, under frontier-orbital control. This definitely is reflected in ion radical reactivity. 

It is convenient to separate the total electron density at each atom into a- and 71-components. It is likely to be the 7t-density that will be important in reactions with nucleophiles, since in an orbitally controlled reaction (Chapter 1) the donor orbital of the incoming nucleophile will initially interact with the lowest vacant 7i -orbital. The overall pattern of charge alternation is repeated in both the 7t- and the a-electron densities, and nucleophiles are expected to attack at the 2- or 4-positions. This is exactly the pattern that is seen in... 

Lewis acids are atoms or molecules that accept an electron pair (103). Soft acids have polarizable valence electrons, whereas hard acids do not. Lewis bases are atoms or molecules that are capable of donating an electron pair. Soft bases are polarizable, whereas hard ones are not. Hard acids preferentially interact with hard bases the interaction is mainly ionic and charge controlled (104). Conversely, soft acids tend to interact (or react) with soft bases the interaction has covalent character and may be orbital controlled. 

Two transition structures with a retention (192, TSret) and an inversion (193, TSinv) configuration (Figure 2) were optimized for 1,3-silyl migration in allylsilane at HF/6-31G, MP2/6-31G and DFT/6-31G levels. The TSjnV 193 was found to be a distorted trigonal bipyramid (TBP) around the silicon with the two allylic carbons at the equatorial positions different from the TS illustrated by Kwart and Slutsky297,302, while 192 has a distorted square pyramid (SP) structure around silicon. Analysis of the orbital interaction in the transition states showed that the major stabilization of 193 was caused by the MO interaction as predicted by the Woodward-Hoffmann rules, while the major stabilization in 192 was ascribed to the subjacent orbital control. 192 was more stable than 193 at... 

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