Semibullvalenes

Cyclooctatetraene can be obtained on an industrial scale by metal carbonyl catalyzed thermal tetramerization of acetylene. If cyclooctatetraene is UV-irradiated at low temperature in the presence of acetone, it is reversibly rearranged to form semibullvalene (H.E. Zimmerman, 1968, 1970). 

Barrelene was obtained via a double Diels-Alder reaction from a-pyrone with methyl acrylate (H.E. Zimmerman, I969A). The primarily forming bicyclic lactone decarboxylates in the heat, and the resulting cyclohexadiene rapidly undergoes another Diels-Alder cyclization. Standard reactions have then been used to eliminate the methoxycarbonyl groups and to introduce C—C double bonds. Irradiation of barrelene produces semibullvalene and cyclooctatetraene (H.E. Zimmerman. 1969B). 

A further reduction in the barrier and increase in rate is seen with semibullvalene i38), in which strain is increased still more. The for this rearrangement is 5.5kcal/molat -143 C. ... 

The di- r-methane rearrangement is a fairly recent reaction. One of the first examples has been reported in 1966 by Zimmerman and Grunewald with the isomerization of barrelene 8 to semibullvalene 9. This rearrangement reaction occurs in the presence of acetone as photosensitizer, and proceeds from the Ti-state. ... 

However, some substrates, generally rigid bicyclic molecules, (e.g., barrelene, which is converted to semibullvalene) give the di-7t-methane rearrangement only from triplet states. 

Acetone sensitization provided semibullvalene (38) while direct photolysis gave cyclooctatetraene (39). Several structural representations of semibullvalene are shown below ... 

Based on the structure drawn for semibullvalene (38), it appears that there should be five different types of protons. However, because of the following Cope rearrangement only three types are observed (—110 to +117°) by NMR ... 

In mechanism (8.43) the bridgehead hydrogens of barrelene should be found at the a positions of semibullvalene (2a, 0/3,0y). Mechanism (8.44) can give three different hydrogen-label distributions. If the final bond formation is concerted with bond fission, and bond fission and formation take place at the same carbon atom [mechanism (8.44A)], the label distribution should be (la, 0/3, ly). If bond formation is concerted with bond fission but with a preference for bond formation at the carbon allylic to bond fission [mechanism (8.44B)], the label distribution should be (2a, 0/3, Oy). If there is a symmetric allylic biradical which has a finite existence [mechanism (8.44AB)], then the hydrogen-label distribution should be (1.5a, 0/3,0.5y). 

Liu has found that 2,3-histrifluoromethylbarrelene undergoes sensitized photorearrangement to three semibullvalenes<43) ... 

With the exception of the a-naphtho position, bridging to aromatic sites is very unfavorable in the barrelene-semibullvalene rearrangements. If we exclude anthraceno-vinyl bridging, there is insufficient energy available (43 kcal/mole) for vinyl-vinyl bridging (58 kcal/mole) in the lowest anthrabarrelene triplet state. Consequently, it is not surprising that the 7 state is unreactive. In contrast, (76 kcal/mole) and T2 (74 kcal/mole) are not subject to this limitation. Evidence in favor of one or the other of these two possible electronic states is not available. 

Two possible reaction schemes for the photosensitized formation of semibullvalene are as follows, where the large dot indicates a proton label (all other protons were exchanged for deuterium) ... 

Fig. 19. Two examples of degenerate Cope rearrangement, a) 1,5-hexadiene b) semibullvalene.

Table I. Variations in Mulliken overlap populations (An) with respect to the unsubstituted compound in 1-substituted semibullvalenes.

Cyclooctatetraene (COT) —> Semibullvalene (SB) Photorearrangement. Irradiation of COT yields semibullvalene [97], in spite of the fact that this photochemical reaction is forbidden by orbital conservation mles. The Longuet-Higgins loop for this system actually predicts that this should happen, although the reaction is phase preserving. (Fig. 42). This is another example of type C loop (Fig. 11). Only six of the eight electrons re-pair as COT transforms to SB. The reaction is made possible by the fact that COT valence isomerization, a phase-inverting reaction (four electron-pair Hiickel system), takes place simultaneously. One expects to produce in the reaction a COT isomer, that can be detected solely by proper substitution. 

Early applications of this reaction are found in the conversion of barrelene to semibullvalene 324) (3.15) or in the preparation of an azabullvalene (3.16) 325). In a similar reaction azabarbaralene has been prepared from aza-bicyclononatriene 326). 

Table 3 lists all polyenes whose radical cations have been investigated by one or other of the above-described techniques and some of the structures listed are shown below the table. Note that some nonconjugated dienes do not retain their structure upon ionization [e.g. semibullvalene 104 (equation 61) or the cyclopentadiene dimers 126 and 294 (equation 62)] but break a bond to form a bisallylic radical cation, a rather common tendency of radical cations that have this possibility. 

Semibatch operation safety, 21 843 Semibatch polymer colloid process, 20 376 Semibatch polymerization of vinyl acetate, 25 608 Semibatch reactors, 21 332 Semibright nickel, 9 820 Semibulk containers, 18 5-6 Semibullvalene... 

Given that the boat transition state 8 is unfavourable, it is at first sight surprising that the Cope rearrangements of bullvalene (14), barbaralane (15), and semibullvalene (16) should take place so readily given that the transition states (17) of these reactions are derivatives of 8. We therefore decided 3S-) to calcu-... 

This is perhaps the area where there is the most optimism of attaining the elusive goal of neutral homoaromaticity. It has been suggested that semibullvalene [83], which undergoes degenerate Cope rearrangements through a homoaromatic transition state [83b] (2) with extremely low... 

Shortly after this prediction, Schroder (1963) isolated bullvalene. Numerous studies amply demonstrated the facile Cope rearrangement of [84] and its derivatives (see for example Schroder and Oth, 1967 Doering et al., 1967). Theory and experiment agree that, by pinching the methano bridges closer together, the rate of the Cope process increases in the sequence semibullvalene [83] > barbaralane [85] > bullvalene [84] (Dewar and Schoeller, 1971 Anastassiou et al., 1975). 

The general conclusion from the foregoing is that the semibullvalene nucleus provides the most promising candidate for neutral homoaromaticity. 

Earlier dynamic NMR studies had already demonstrated that the substituted semibullvalenes [87], [88] and [89] were indeed rapidly equilibrating Cope systems and not ground-state homoaromatics (Anet and Schenck, 1970 Moriarty et al., 1972 Russell et al., 1973). The bis(trifluoromethyl)semi-bullvalenes [90] and [91] had also been formulated as non-equilibrating Cope systems (Liu, 1968 Liu and Krespan, 1969). 

An electron-diffraction study of semibullvalene [83] revealed the anticipated Cs symmetry with reasonable correspondence between calculated and experimental structural parameters (Wang and Bauer, 1972). 

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