Wiberg silenes, reactions with dienes

Two comprehensive studies of the reactions of Wiberg type and of the Jones-Auner type silenes with dienes will be described immediately below, without separating the results into the separate subsections of [2 + 4], [2 + 2], and ene reactions. The overall results of their investigations, given in one location, will allow a better, appreciation of the effects that the substituents on the silene or diene have in determining which reaction takes place. 

Wiberg and coworkers published relative rate constants and the products of reaction of silene 6 with a number of alkenes and dienes in ether solution at 100 °C6 106-108. These data are listed in Table 2 along with an indication of the type of product formed in each case. As is the norm in Diels-Alder additions by more conventional dienophiles, the rate of [2 + 4]-cycloaddition of 6 to dienes increases with sequential methyl substitution in the 2- and 3-positions of the diene, as is illustrated by the data for 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene (DMB), isoprene and 1,3-butadiene. The well-known effects of methyl substitution at the 1- and 4-positions of the diene in conventional Diels-Alder chemistry are also reflected with 6 as the dienophile. For example, lruns-1,3-pen tadiene reacts significantly faster than the f/.v-isorrier, an effect that has been attributed to steric destabilization of the transition state for [2 + 4]-cycloaddition. In fact, the reaction of c/s-l,3-pentadiene with 6 yields silacyclobutane adducts, while the trans-diene reacts by [2 + 4]-cycloaddition108. No detectable reaction occurs with 2,5-dimethyl-2,4-hexadiene. The reaction of 6 with isoprene occurs regioselectively to yield adducts 65a and 65b in the ratio 65a 65b = 8.5 (equation 50)106,107. 

It was also well established that silenes could take part as the dienophile in Diels-Alder reactions. In many cases, particularly with unsymmetric dienes such as isoprene, the reactions were not clean because, in addition to formation of the [2+4] cycloadduct 61, the possibility exists for the formation of it regioisomer 62, products of an ene reaction 63, and conceivably the [2+2] cycloaddition product 64, as shown in Eq. (23). Wiberg... 

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