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Updated: Jun 28, 2025

Versatile CO2 Transformations into Complex Products: A One-pot Two-step Strategy
Published on: November 9, 2019
Evaluation of Retro-Aldol vs Retro-Carbonyl-Ene Mechanistic Pathways in a Complexity-Generating C-C Bond
Ana S Bulger1, Daniel W Turner1, Qingyang Zhou1
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569, United States.
Abstract:
We report an experimental and computational investigation of the likely mechanism of a cascade reaction. The reaction involves an intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction, followed by a C-C bond cleavage, to afford a complex bridged bicyclic product. As multiple reaction pathways could be envisioned for the latter step, the mechanism of the C-C bond cleavage step was investigated. Two reasonable reaction pathways were evaluated. Both computations and experiments indicate that the C-C bond cleavage step proceeds by a retro-carbonyl-ene pathway rather than a retro-aldol pathway. This report underscores the synergy between computational and experimental studies and establishes the mechanism of an interesting complexity-generating transformation.
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