Cyclopropyl group

Last updated
Chemical structure of the cyclopropyl group Cyclopropyl group.svg
Chemical structure of the cyclopropyl group

A cyclopropyl group is a chemical structure derived from cyclopropane; it is typically produced in a cyclopropanation reaction. The group has an empirical formula of C3H5 and chemical bonds from each of the three carbons to both of the other two.

Structure and bonding

Due to the unfavoured bond angles (60°), cyclopropyl groups are highly strained. Two orbital models were proposed to describe the bonding situation. The Coulson-Moffit model uses bent bonds. The C-C bonds are formed by overlap of two sp-hybrid orbitals. To adapt to the small bond angle, there is some rehybridization resulting in sp~5-hybrids for the ring bonds and sp~2 for the C-H bonds. This model resembles the banana bond model for C=C double bonds (τ bonds).

Alternatively the structure can be explained with the Walsh model. Here the two sp-hybrids forming the ring bond are separated into one sp2-hybrid and one pure p-orbital. This corresponds to the π bond description of C=C double bonds.

Cyclopropyl groups are good donors in hyperconjugation resulting in a considerable stabilization of carbocations. In contrast to double bonds, stabilization of radicals is weaker and stabilization of carbanions is negligible. This is explained by the occupation of the π system with two more electrons, making the cyclopropyl methyl cation's HOMO isolobal to the allyl anion's HOMO. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Covalent bond</span> Chemical bond by sharing of electron pairs

A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms, when they share electrons, is known as covalent bonding. For many molecules, the sharing of electrons allows each atom to attain the equivalent of a full valence shell, corresponding to a stable electronic configuration. In organic chemistry, covalent bonding is much more common than ionic bonding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conjugated system</span> System of connected p-orbitals with delocalized electrons in a molecule

In theoretical chemistry, a conjugated system is a system of connected p-orbitals with delocalized electrons in a molecule, which in general lowers the overall energy of the molecule and increases stability. It is conventionally represented as having alternating single and multiple bonds. Lone pairs, radicals or carbenium ions may be part of the system, which may be cyclic, acyclic, linear or mixed. The term "conjugated" was coined in 1899 by the German chemist Johannes Thiele.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aromaticity</span> Chemical property

In organic chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property describing the way in which a conjugated ring of unsaturated bonds, lone pairs, or empty orbitals exhibits a stabilization stronger than would be expected by the stabilization of conjugation alone. The earliest use of the term was in an article by August Wilhelm Hofmann in 1855. There is no general relationship between aromaticity as a chemical property and the olfactory properties of such compounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Double bond</span> Chemical bond involving four bonding electrons; has one sigma plus one pi bond

In chemistry, a double bond is a covalent bond between two atoms involving four bonding electrons as opposed to two in a single bond. Double bonds occur most commonly between two carbon atoms, for example in alkenes. Many double bonds exist between two different elements: for example, in a carbonyl group between a carbon atom and an oxygen atom. Other common double bonds are found in azo compounds (N=N), imines (C=N), and sulfoxides (S=O). In a skeletal formula, a double bond is drawn as two parallel lines (=) between the two connected atoms; typographically, the equals sign is used for this. Double bonds were introduced in chemical notation by Russian chemist Alexander Butlerov.

In chemistry, resonance, also called mesomerism, is a way of describing bonding in certain molecules or polyatomic ions by the combination of several contributing structures into a resonance hybrid in valence bond theory. It has particular value for analyzing delocalized electrons where the bonding cannot be expressed by one single Lewis structure. The resonance hybrid is the accurate structure for a molecule or ion; it is an average of the theoretical contributing structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lone pair</span> Pair of valence electrons which are not shared with another atom in a covalent bond

In science, a lone pair refers to a pair of valence electrons that are not shared with another atom in a covalent bond and is sometimes called an unshared pair or non-bonding pair. Lone pairs are found in the outermost electron shell of atoms. They can be identified by using a Lewis structure. Electron pairs are therefore considered lone pairs if two electrons are paired but are not used in chemical bonding. Thus, the number of electrons in lone pairs plus the number of electrons in bonds equals the number of valence electrons around an atom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hückel's rule</span> Method of determining aromaticity in organic molecules

In organic chemistry, Hückel's rule predicts that a planar ring molecule will have aromatic properties if it has 4n + 2 π-electrons, where n is a non-negative integer. The quantum mechanical basis for its formulation was first worked out by physical chemist Erich Hückel in 1931. The succinct expression as the 4n + 2 rule has been attributed to W. v. E. Doering (1951), although several authors were using this form at around the same time.

In chemistry, orbital hybridisation is the concept of mixing atomic orbitals to form new hybrid orbitals suitable for the pairing of electrons to form chemical bonds in valence bond theory. For example, in a carbon atom which forms four single bonds, the valence-shell s orbital combines with three valence-shell p orbitals to form four equivalent sp3 mixtures in a tetrahedral arrangement around the carbon to bond to four different atoms. Hybrid orbitals are useful in the explanation of molecular geometry and atomic bonding properties and are symmetrically disposed in space. Usually hybrid orbitals are formed by mixing atomic orbitals of comparable energies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bent bond</span> Type of covalent bond in organic chemistry

In organic chemistry, a bent bond, also known as a banana bond, is a type of covalent chemical bond with a geometry somewhat reminiscent of a banana. The term itself is a general representation of electron density or configuration resembling a similar "bent" structure within small ring molecules, such as cyclopropane (C3H6) or as a representation of double or triple bonds within a compound that is an alternative to the sigma and pi bond model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyperconjugation</span> Concept in organic chemistry

In organic chemistry, hyperconjugation refers to the delocalization of electrons with the participation of bonds of primarily σ-character. Usually, hyperconjugation involves the interaction of the electrons in a sigma (σ) orbital with an adjacent unpopulated non-bonding p or antibonding σ* or π* orbitals to give a pair of extended molecular orbitals. However, sometimes, low-lying antibonding σ* orbitals may also interact with filled orbitals of lone pair character (n) in what is termed negative hyperconjugation. Increased electron delocalization associated with hyperconjugation increases the stability of the system. In particular, the new orbital with bonding character is stabilized, resulting in an overall stabilization of the molecule. Only electrons in bonds that are in the β position can have this sort of direct stabilizing effect — donating from a sigma bond on an atom to an orbital in another atom directly attached to it. However, extended versions of hyperconjugation can be important as well. The Baker–Nathan effect, sometimes used synonymously for hyperconjugation, is a specific application of it to certain chemical reactions or types of structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bürgi–Dunitz angle</span>

The Bürgi–Dunitz angle is one of two angles that fully define the geometry of "attack" of a nucleophile on a trigonal unsaturated center in a molecule, originally the carbonyl center in an organic ketone, but now extending to aldehyde, ester, and amide carbonyls, and to alkenes (olefins) as well. The angle was named after crystallographers Hans-Beat Bürgi and Jack D. Dunitz, its first senior investigators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vinyl cation</span> Organic cation

The vinyl cation is a carbocation with the positive charge on an alkene carbon. Its empirical formula of the parent ion is C
2
H+
3
. Vinyl cation are invoked as reactive intermediates in solvolysis of vinyl halides, as well as electrophilic addition to alkynes and allenes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stereoelectronic effect</span> Affect on molecular properties due to spatial arrangement of electron orbitals

In chemistry, primarily organic and computational chemistry, a stereoelectronic effect is an effect on molecular geometry, reactivity, or physical properties due to spatial relationships in the molecules' electronic structure, in particular the interaction between atomic and/or molecular orbitals. Phrased differently, stereoelectronic effects can also be defined as the geometric constraints placed on the ground and/or transition states of molecules that arise from considerations of orbital overlap. Thus, a stereoelectronic effect explains a particular molecular property or reactivity by invoking stabilizing or destabilizing interactions that depend on the relative orientations of electrons in space.

In organic chemistry, the Cieplak effect is a predictive model to rationalize why nucleophiles preferentially add to one face of a carbonyl over another. Proposed by Andrzej Stanislaw Cieplak in 1980, it correctly predicts results that could not be justified by the other standard models at the time, such as the Cram and Felkin–Anh models. In the Cieplak model, electrons from a neighboring bond delocalize into the forming carbon–nucleophile (C–Nuc) bond, lowering the energy of the transition state and accelerating the rate of reaction. Whichever bond can best donate its electrons into the C–Nuc bond determines which face of the carbonyl the nucleophile will add to. The nucleophile may be any of a number of reagents, most commonly organometallic or reducing agents. The Cieplak effect is subtle, and often competes with sterics, solvent effects, counterion complexation of the carbonyl oxygen, and other effects to determine product distribution. Subsequent work has questioned its legitimacy.

The σ-π model and equivalent-orbital model refer to two possible representations of molecules in valence bond theory. The σ-π model differentiates bonds and lone pairs of σ symmetry from those of π symmetry, while the equivalent-orbital model hybridizes them. The σ-π treatment takes into account molecular symmetry and is better suited to interpretation of aromatic molecules, although computational calculations of certain molecules tend to optimize better under the equivalent-orbital treatment. The two representations produce the same total electron density and are related by a unitary transformation of the occupied molecular orbitals; different localization procedures yield either of the two. Two equivalent orbitals h and h' can be constructed by taking linear combinations h = c1σ + c2π and h' = c1σ – c2π for an appropriate choice of coefficients c1 and c2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical bonding of water</span>

Water is a simple triatomic bent molecule with C2v molecular symmetry and bond angle of 104.5° between the central oxygen atom and the hydrogen atoms. Despite being one of the simplest triatomic molecules, its chemical bonding scheme is nonetheless complex as many of its bonding properties such as bond angle, ionization energy, and electronic state energy cannot be explained by one unified bonding model. Instead, several traditional and advanced bonding models such as simple Lewis and VSEPR structure, valence bond theory, molecular orbital theory, isovalent hybridization, and Bent's rule are discussed below to provide a comprehensive bonding model for H
2
O
, explaining and rationalizing the various electronic and physical properties and features manifested by its peculiar bonding arrangements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digermyne</span> Class of chemical compounds

Digermynes are a class of compounds that are regarded as the heavier digermanium analogues of alkynes. The parent member of this entire class is HGeGeH, which has only been characterized computationally, but has revealed key features of the whole class. Because of the large interatomic repulsion between two Ge atoms, only kinetically stabilized digermyne molecules can be synthesized and characterized by utilizing bulky protecting groups and appropriate synthetic methods, for example, reductive coupling of germanium(II) halides.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trisilaallene</span> Class of silicon chemical compounds

Trisilaallene is a subclass of silene derivatives where a central silicon atom forms double bonds with each of two terminal silicon atoms, with the generic formula R2Si=Si=SiR2. Trisilaallene is a silicon-based analog of an allene, but their chemical properties are markedly different.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silylone</span> Class of organosilicon compounds

Silylones are a class of zero-valent monatomic silicon complexes, characterized as having two lone pairs and two donor-acceptor ligand interactions stabilizing a silicon(0) center. Synthesis of silylones generally involves the use of sterically bulky carbenes to stabilize highly reactive Si(0) centers. For this reason, silylones are sometimes referred to siladicarbenes. To date, silylones have been synthesized with cyclic alkyl amino carbenes (cAAC) and bidentate N-heterocyclic carbenes (bis-NHC). They are capable of reactions with a variety of substrates, including chalcogens and carbon dioxide.

<i>N</i>-heterocyclic silylene Chemical compound

An N-Heterocyclic silylene (NHSi) is an uncharged heterocyclic chemical compound consisting of a divalent silicon atom bonded to two nitrogen atoms. The isolation of the first stable NHSi, also the first stable dicoordinate silicon compound, was reported in 1994 by Michael Denk and Robert West three years after Anthony Arduengo first isolated an N-heterocyclic carbene, the lighter congener of NHSis. Since their first isolation, NHSis have been synthesized and studied with both saturated and unsaturated central rings ranging in size from 4 to 6 atoms. The stability of NHSis, especially 6π aromatic unsaturated five-membered examples, make them useful systems to study the structure and reactivity of silylenes and low-valent main group elements in general. Though not used outside of academic settings, complexes containing NHSis are known to be competent catalysts for industrially important reactions. This article focuses on the properties and reactivity of five-membered NHSis.

References

  1. Jung, Sebastian T.; Nickisch, Roman; Reinsperger, Tony; Luy, Burkhard; Podlech, Joachim (April 2021). "Stereoelectronic effects: Perlin effects in cyclohexane‐derived compounds". Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry. 34 (4). doi: 10.1002/poc.4165 . S2CID   229407105.