Additivity of Diene Substituent Gibbs Free Energy Contributions for Diels-Alder Reactions between (F3C)2B = NMe2 and Substituted Cyclopentadienes

Systematic computational studies of pericyclic Diels-Alder-type reactions between aminoborane (F3C)(2)B = N(CH3)(2), 1, and all permutations of substituted cyclopentadienes (C5RRRRRR5b)-R-1-R-2-R-3-R-4-R-5a (R = H, CH3, CF3, F) allow isolation of substitutional effects on Gibbs free energy barrier heights and reaction Gibbs free energies. The effects appear to be additive in all cases. Substitution at positions Sa and Sb always increases barriers and reaction energies, an effect explained by steric interactions between substituents and the aminoborane moiety. For cases R = CH3, regioselectivities differ from those expected from canonical organic chemistry predictions. Frontier molecular orbital calculations suggest this arises from the extreme polarization of the pi interaction in 1. For cases R = CF3, the 2/3-substitution comparison accords with canon, but the 1/4-substitution comparison does not. This appears to arise from a combination of electronic and steric issues. For cases R = F, many of the reactions are exergonic, in contrast to the cases R = CH3, CF3. Additionally, fluorine substitution at positions 2 and 4 has a barrier-lowering effect. Frontier molecular orbital calculations support an orbital-based preference for formation of 2- and 4-substituted "meta" products rather than "ortho/para" products.