Todd:Chem3x11 ToddL13
Chem3x11 Lecture 13
Incomplete Friday Jun 1
This last lecture is about two other classes of pericyclic reactions, namely cycloadditions and sigmatropic rearrangements.
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Key concepts
- Cycloadditions and sigmatropic rearrangements are governed by similar orbital considerations to those we've already seen
Cycloadditions
Cycloadditions are pericyclic reactions where two components come together to give a cyclic compounds. The best-known example is the Diels-Alder reaction. The reaction occurs between a diene (with 4 π electrons) and a dienophile (with 2 π electrons); we talk of this reaction being a [4 + 2] cycloaddition. Three π bonds and a σ bond in the starting materials become one π bond and five σ bonds in the product.
Again, there are no intermediates, just a cyclic transition state. The stereochemistry of the starting materials is carried through to the products, as can be seen by the above example. We need to explain why this is, as well as explaining other things about the reaction.
General Orbital Requirements for a Diels-Alder Reaction
As for electrocyclic processes, the lobes of the MOs on the interacting atoms need to be in phase. We should look at the frontier orbitals of the two reagents. Looking at the diene and dienophile drawn on paper, it's not clear which interaction is most energetically likely, but it turns out the HOMO of the diene interacts with the LUMO of the dienophile. (The other interaction is symmetry-allowed, but the orbitals are often quite far apart in energy and do not dominate the interaction unless the electronics of the reagents are unusual, giving what are called "inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reactions" which we don't cover.)
You'll notice that the two components approach and interact using MO lobes that are on the same face of each. i.e. the diene uses two lobes on one face and the dienophile uses two lobes on one face. This is a suprafacial-suprafacial interaction. The interaction between diene and dienophile is very sensitive to what's attached to the different systems. The simplest DA reaction on paper is very hard to get to go, but small steric and electronic changes to the structures of the reagents means the reaction can go very quickly.
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