A theoretical study of the mechanisms and regiochemistry of the reactions of 5-alkoxyoxazole with thioaldehydes, nitroso compounds, and aldehydes.

A theoretical study based on B3LYP/6-31G calculations has been applied to the mechanisms and regiochemistry of reactions of 5-alkoxyoxazole with thioaldehydes, nitroso compounds, and aldehydes. All three reactions adopt similar mechanisms, which start with Diels-Alder (DA) reactions, followed by either a novel, concerted ring-opening-ring-closing (RORC) step to transfer the DA adduct to 2-alkoxycarbonyl-3-thiazoline and 2-alkoxycarbonyl-3-oxazoline for thioaldehydes and aldehydes, respectively, or stepwise ring-opening and ring-closing steps to generate 1,2,4-oxadiazoline for nitroso compounds. The reactions of 5-alkoxyoxazole with thioaldehydes and nitroso compounds can be conducted under thermal reaction conditions due to the 10 kcal/mol activation barriers for their rate-determining DA reactions. By contrast, the reaction of 5-alkoxyoxazole with aldehydes cannot take place under thermal conditions, since this bimolecular reaction has the rate-determining RORC transition state higher than the reactants by 30.5 kcal/mol.