PET reactions of cis-dibenzoylalkenes: an efficient trans-reduction of C=C bond.

In contrast to its reaction under catalytic hydrogenation, the first instance of an exclusive and chemoselective trans-reduction of the ene part of derivatives of 5,6-dibenzoylbicyclo[2.2.2]oct-5-en-2-one has been reported under moderate photoinduced electron transfer (PET) conditions using triethylamine (TEA). In the absence of TEA, such molecules underwent 1,5-photophenyl migration yielding vinyl ketenes.

Face-selective Diels-Alder reactions between unsymmetrical cyclohexadienes and symmetric trans-dienophile: an experimental and computational investigation.

A combined experimental and theoretical study of the Diels-Alder reactions between 2-trimethylsiloxy-1,3-cyclohexadienes (2-11) and (E)-1,4-diphenylbut-2-ene-1,4-dione (1) is reported. Two diastereomeric products, 5-endo-6-exo- (nx) and 5-exo-6-endo- (xn) dibenzoyl derivatives, are possible with symmetric trans-dienophile (1). While in many cases 5-endo-6-exo product is preferred over the corresponding 5-exo-6-endo product, the product ratio nx:xn is found to vary with the position of substituents on the diene. The density functional theory studies with the mPW1PW91/6-31G* as well as the B3LYP/6-31G* levels reveal that the electrostatic repulsion between the oxygen lone pairs on the diene and the dienophile is critical to the observed product selectivities. The optimized transition state geometries though appeared to involve secondary orbital interactions, careful examination of the frontier Kohn-Sham orbitals as well as calculations with the natural bond orbital (NBO) analyses confirm the absence of SOI in these transition states. In the case of methyl-substituted dienes, a cumulative effect of steric and electrostatic interactions between the diene and the dienophile is found to be the controlling element toward the observed selectivity.

Steric-controlled excimer formation in naphthalene analogues of chalcone.

Naphthalene analogues of chalcone (typical vinylarenes) are well known for their intramolecular charge transfer (CT) process. The all four possible isomers NC1, NC2, NC3 and NC4 were observed to give structure-less broad CT bands, whereas, excimer formation at higher concentration was reported only for NC4 [Res. Chem. Intermed. 25 (1999) 903]. However, conventional GMMX calculation data reveals that the naphthalene portion of all the isomers are planar, hence, excimer emission is expected from all of them, i.e., if NC4 can form an excimer, then the rests are also capable of doing it. In this paper we have actually succeeded in resolving the excimer peaks for all these four isomers by optimization of concentration, though the extent of excimer formation was observed to be the maximum for NC4. These differential tendencies of excimer formation can be explained by the change in extent of intermolecular stacking interaction of the naphthalene moieties. Variation occurs here due to steric perturbation arising from the specific orientation of the near resident non-planar aroyl component with respect to the naphthalene moiety.