Orbital symmetry correlation diagram method

The orbital symmetry correlation diagram method was developed by Woodward and Hoffmann and extended by Longuet-Higgins and Abrahamson. 

The feasibility of cycloaddition reactions can be easily predicted on the basis of three methods, namely, orbital symmetry correlation-diagram method. 

Transfer Reactions by Orbital Symmetry Correlation-Diagram Method 285... 

The book opens with an introduction (Chapter 1), which, besides providing background information needed for appreciating different types of pericyclic reactions, outlines simple ways to analyze these reactions using orbital symmetry correlation diagram, frontier molecular orbital (FMO), and perturbation molecular orbital (PMO) methods. This chapter also has references to important published reviews and articles. 

We have emphasized that the Diels-Alder reaction generally takes place rapidly and conveniently. In sharp contrast, the apparently similar dimerization of olefins to cyclobutanes (5-49) gives very poor results in most cases, except when photochemically induced. Fukui, Woodward, and Hoffmann have shown that these contrasting results can be explained by the principle of conservation of orbital symmetry,895 which predicts that certain reactions are allowed and others forbidden. The orbital-symmetry rules (also called the Woodward-Hoffmann rules) apply only to concerted reactions, e.g., mechanism a, and are based on the principle that reactions take place in such a way as to maintain maximum bonding throughout the course of the reaction. There are several ways of applying the orbital-symmetry principle to cycloaddition reactions, three of which are used more frequently than others.896 Of these three we will discuss two the frontier-orbital method and the Mobius-Huckel method. The third, called the correlation diagram method,897 is less convenient to apply than the other two. 

Alternative approaches have been suggested by Langlet and Malrieu22 and by Trindle.23-25 Langlet and Malrieu point out that although the correlation diagram method requires the use of symmetry orbitals, which must therefore be delocalized,... 

Recently, Woodward and Hoffmann (1965, 1968, 1969), Longuet-Higgins and Abrahamson (1965), and Fukui (1971) have suggested that the stereochemical courses of these reactions are controlled by the symmetry properties of the orbitals of the reactants and products. Two approaches are employed, the frontier orbital method, and the correlation diagram method. The first approach requires a knowledge of the molecular orbitals of unsaturated hydrocarbons and consideration of the way in which they can interact. 

Correlation diagrams can be constructed in an analogous fashion for the disrotatory and conrotatory modes for interconversion of hexatriene and cyclohexadiene. They lead to the prediction that the disrotatory mode is an allowed process whereas the conrotatory reaction is forbidden. This is in agreement with the experimental results on this reaction. Other electrocyclizations can be analyzed by the same method. Substituted derivatives of polyenes obey the orbital symmetry rules, even in cases in which the substitution pattern does not correspond in symmetiy to the orbital system. It is the symmetry of the participating orbitals, not of the molecule as a whole, that is crucial to the analysis. 

We will conclude this section on theory with such a case. In Section 8.3 it was shown that the influence of substituents on the rate of dediazoniation of arenediazonium ions can be treated by dual substituent parameter (DSP) methods, and that kinetic evidence is consistent with a side-on addition of N2. We will now discuss these experimental conclusion with the help of schematic orbital correlation diagrams for the diazonium ion, the aryl cation, and the side-on ion-molecule pair (Fig. 8-5, from Zollinger, 1990). We use the same orbital classification as Vincent and Radom (1978) (C2v symmetry). 

The most widely used qualitative model for the explanation of the shapes of molecules is the Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion (VSEPR) model of Gillespie and Nyholm (25). The orbital correlation diagrams of Walsh (26) are also used for simple systems for which the qualitative form of the MOs may be deduced from symmetry considerations. Attempts have been made to prove that these two approaches are equivalent (27). But this is impossible since Walsh s Rules refer explicitly to (and only have meaning within) the MO model while the VSEPR method does not refer to (is not confined by) any explicitly-stated model of molecular electronic structure. Thus, any proof that the two approaches are equivalent can only prove, at best, that the two are equivalent at the MO level i.e. that Walsh s Rules are contained in the VSEPR model. Of course, the transformation to localised orbitals of an MO determinant provides a convenient picture of VSEPR rules but the VSEPR method itself depends not on the independent-particle model but on the possibility of separating the total electronic structure of a molecule into more or less autonomous electron pairs which interact as separate entities (28). The localised MO description is merely the simplest such separation the general case is our Eq. (6)... 

Predictions can be made about the suitability of different system trajectories on the basis of orbital symmetry conservation rules (207). The most suitable trajectory is an approximation to the reaction path of the reaction under study. The rules can also yield information about the possible structure of the activated complex. The correlation diagram technique has been improved in a series of books by Epiotis et al. (214-216). The method is based on self-consistent field-configuration interaction or valence bond (SCF-CI or VB) (including ionic structures) wave functions. Applications on reactions in the ground states as well as in the excited electronic states are impressive however, the price to be paid for the predictions seems to be rather high. 

Since cr and cr" are maintained throughout the reaction, there must be a continuous correlation of orbitals of the same symmetry type. Therefore, orbitals of like symmetry correlate with one another and they can be connected. This, the crucial idea of the Woodward-Hoffmann method, is shown in the central part of the diagram. 

---