Effect of hydrogen bonds and CF group on the regioselectivity and mechanism of [3 + 2] cycloaddition reactions between nitrile oxide and 2,4-disubstituted cyclopentenes. A MEDT study.

The mechanism and the regioselectivity of the non-polar [3 + 2] cycloaddition reactions between nitrile oxide and two cyclopentenes were theoretically investigated within the molecular electron density theory (MEDT) using DFT methods, namely the B3LYP, MPWB1K and ωB97XD functionals together with the standard 6-31G(d) basis set. The activation energies of these 32CA reactions are relatively high, due to the low nucleophilic power of both cycloalkenes and the relatively moderate electrophilic nature of the nitrile oxide. The B3LYP and MPWB1K functionals reproduced high relative energies values, while the ωB97XD one yields better values in the kinetic and thermodynamic energies. The completely 4-regioselectivity that observed experimentally has been explained by the analysis of the relative energies, in which the formation of 4-regioismeric cycloadducts is always the more kinetically favored one. The electron localization function (ELF) topological analysis showed that the studied 32CA reactions proceed through two-stage one-step nonconcerted mechanism. The effects of the hydrogen bonds on the regioselectivity determination have been investigated by mean both noncovalent interactions (NCI) and quantum theory of atoms in molecule (QTAIM) analyses, which confirm the presence of high strength N - H···O hydrogen bond and a supplementary weak stabilized H…F hydrogen bonds.