TY - JOUR
T1 - A molecular electron density theory study of the competitiveness of polar diels–alder and polar alder-ene reactions
AU - Domingo, Luis R.
AU - Ríos-Gutiérrez, Mar
AU - Pérez, Patricia
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of the Spanish Government, project CTQ2016-78669-P (AEI/FEDER, UE) and Fondecyt (Chile) grant 1180348.
Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of the Spanish Government, project CTQ2016-78669-P (AEI/FEDER, UE) and Fondecyt (Chile) grant 1180348. L.R.D. thanks Fondecyt for continuous support through Cooperación Internacional. M.R.-G. also thanks MINECO for a post-doctoral contract cofinanced by the European Social Fund (BES-2014-068258).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors.
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - The competitiveness of the BF3 Lewis acid (LA) catalyzed polar Diels–Alder (P-DA) and polar Alder-ene (P-AE) reactions of 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene, a diene possessing an allylic hydrogen, with formaldehyde has been studied within the Molecular Electron Density Theory (MEDT) at the MPWB1K/6-311G(d,p) computational level. Coordination of BF3 LA to the oxygen of formaldehyde drastically accelerates both reactions given the high electrophilic character of the BF3:formaldehyde complex. As a consequence, these reactions present a very low activation enthalpy—less than 2.2 kcal·mol−1—thus becoming competitive. In dioxane, the P-AE reaction is slightly favored because of the larger polar character of the corresponding transition state structure (TS). In addition, the Prins reaction between hexahydrophenanthrene and the BF3:formaldehyde complex has also been studied as a computational model of an experimental P-AE reaction. For this LA-catalyzed reaction, the P-DA reaction presents very high activation energy because of the aromatic character of the dienic framework. The present MEDT study allows establishing the similarity of the TSs associated with the formation of the C–C single bond in both reactions, as well as the competitiveness between P-AE and P-DA reactions when the diene substrate possesses at least one allylic hydrogen, thus making it necessary to be considered by experimentalists in highly polar processes. In this work, the term “pseudocyclic selectivity” is suggested to connote the selective formation of structural isomers through stereoisomeric pseudocyclic TSs.
AB - The competitiveness of the BF3 Lewis acid (LA) catalyzed polar Diels–Alder (P-DA) and polar Alder-ene (P-AE) reactions of 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene, a diene possessing an allylic hydrogen, with formaldehyde has been studied within the Molecular Electron Density Theory (MEDT) at the MPWB1K/6-311G(d,p) computational level. Coordination of BF3 LA to the oxygen of formaldehyde drastically accelerates both reactions given the high electrophilic character of the BF3:formaldehyde complex. As a consequence, these reactions present a very low activation enthalpy—less than 2.2 kcal·mol−1—thus becoming competitive. In dioxane, the P-AE reaction is slightly favored because of the larger polar character of the corresponding transition state structure (TS). In addition, the Prins reaction between hexahydrophenanthrene and the BF3:formaldehyde complex has also been studied as a computational model of an experimental P-AE reaction. For this LA-catalyzed reaction, the P-DA reaction presents very high activation energy because of the aromatic character of the dienic framework. The present MEDT study allows establishing the similarity of the TSs associated with the formation of the C–C single bond in both reactions, as well as the competitiveness between P-AE and P-DA reactions when the diene substrate possesses at least one allylic hydrogen, thus making it necessary to be considered by experimentalists in highly polar processes. In this work, the term “pseudocyclic selectivity” is suggested to connote the selective formation of structural isomers through stereoisomeric pseudocyclic TSs.
KW - Diels-Alder reactions; Alder-ene reactions; competitive reactions
KW - Molecular Electron Density Theory
KW - Polar reactions; Prins reaction
KW - Pseudocyclic selectivity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052021556&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/molecules23081913
DO - 10.3390/molecules23081913
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052021556
SN - 1420-3049
VL - 23
JO - Molecules
JF - Molecules
IS - 8
M1 - 1913
ER -