LAUSR

Diazoalkanes are ambiphilic 1,3-dipoles that undergo fast Huisgen cycloadditions with both electron-rich and electron-poor dipolarophiles but react slowly with alkenes of low polarity. Frontier molecular orbital (FMO) theory considering the 3-center-4-electron π-system of the propargyl fragment of diazoalkanes is commonly applied to rationalize these reactivity trends. However, we recently found that a change in the mechanism from cycloadditions to azo couplings takes place due to the existence of a previously overlooked lower-lying unoccupied molecular orbital. We now propose an alternative approach to analyze 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions, which relies on the linear free energy relationship lg k2(20 °C) = sN(N + E) (eq 1) with two solvent-dependent parameters (N, sN) to characterize nucleophiles and one parameter (E) for electrophiles. Rate constants for the cycloadditions of diazoalkanes with dipolarophiles were measured and compared with those calculated for the formation of zwitterions by eq 1. The difference between experimental and predicted Gibbs energies of activation is interpreted as the energy of concert, i.e., the stabilization of the transition states by the concerted formation of two new bonds. By linking the plot of lg k2 vs N for nucleophilic dipolarophiles with that of lg k2 vs E for electrophilic dipolarophiles, one obtains V-shaped plots which provide absolute rate constants for the stepwise reactions on the borderlines. These plots furthermore predict relative reactivities of dipolarophiles in concerted, highly asynchronous cycloadditions more precisely than the classical correlations of rate constants with FMO energies or ionization potentials. DFT calculations using the SMD solvent model confirm these interpretations.