Transition electron donation

If the transition state resembles the intermediate n-complex, the structure involved is a substituted cyclohexadienyl cation. The electrophile has localized one pair of electrons to form the new a bond. The Hiickel orbitals are those shown for the pentadienyl system in Fig. 10.1. A substituent can stabilize the cation by electron donation. The LUMO is 1/13. This orbital has its highest coefficients at carbons 1, 3, and 5 of the pentadienyl system. These are the positions which are ortho and para to the position occupied by the electrophile. Electron-donor substituents at the 2- and 4-positions will stabilize the system much less because of the nodes at these carbons in the LUMO. 

All these methods demonstrate that the 2-positions of pyridine, pyrimidine, and other azines are the most electron deficient in the ground state. However, considerably greater chemical reactivity toward nucleophiles at the 4-position is often observed in syntheses and is supported by kinetic studies. Electron deficiency in the ground state is related to the ability to stabilize the pair of electrons donated by the nucleophile in the transition state. However, it is not so directly related that it can explain the relative reactivity at different ring-positions. Certain factors which appear to affect positional selectivity are discussed in Section II, B. 

Figure 6.14d shows the electron donation interaction (electrons are transferred from the initially fully occupied 5a molecular orbitals to the Fermi level of the metal, thus this is an electron donation interaction). Blyholder was first to discuss that CO chemisorption on transition metal involves both donation and backdonation of electrons.4 We now know both experimentally7 and theoretically96,98 that the electron backdonation mechanism is usually predominant, so that CO behaves on most transition metal surfaces as an overall electron acceptor. 

Additions of an electrophile (E) to the n bond (If) substituted by an electron-donating group (EDG) and an electron-accepting group (EAG) occur at the P and a positions, respectively. Transition states are considered as non-cyclic E-Il-EDG(EAG) systems (Scheme 16). 

Scheme 36 Cyclic transition states prefer electron-donating geminal a bonds at the Z-position in the reactants...

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