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Photogeneration of N-Heterocyclic Carbenes: Application in Photoinduced Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization
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Photochemical electrocyclization of the indolinylphenylethenes involving a C-N bond formation

Olga A Fedorova1, Yuri V Fedorov, Elena N Andryukhina

  • 1Photochemistry Center of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novatorov str., 7a, 119421 Moscow, Russia. fedorova@photonics.ru

Organic Letters
|November 25, 2003
PubMed

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Electrocyclic reactions are reversible reactions. They involve an intramolecular cyclization or ring-opening of a conjugated polyene. Shown below are two examples of electrocyclic reactions. In the first reaction, the formation of the cyclic product is favored. In contrast, in the second reaction, ring-opening is favored due to the high ring strain associated with cyclobutene formation.
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The absorption of UV–visible light by conjugated systems causes the promotion of an electron from the ground state to the excited state. Consequently, photochemical electrocyclic reactions proceed via the excited-state HOMO rather than the ground-state HOMO. Since the ground- and excited-state HOMOs have different symmetries, the stereochemical outcome of electrocyclic reactions depends on the mode of activation; i.e., thermal or photochemical.
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Conjugated systems containing an even number of π-electron pairs undergo a conrotatory ring closure. For example, thermal electrocyclization of (2E,4E)-2,4-hexadiene, a conjugated diene containing two π-electron pairs, gives trans-3,4-dimethylcyclobutene.
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Cycloadditions are one of the most valuable and effective synthesis routes to form cyclic compounds. These are concerted pericyclic reactions between two unsaturated compounds resulting in a cyclic product with two new σ bonds formed at the expense of π bonds. The [4 + 2] cycloaddition, known as the Diels–Alder reaction, is the most common. The other example is a [2 + 2] cycloaddition.
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