Gosteli-Claisen rearrangement: DFT study of substituent-rate effects.

The uncatalyzed Gosteli-Claisen rearrangement of four double bond isomeric allyl vinyl ethers has been studied at the B3LYP/6-31G* and B3LYP/6-31G*+PCM levels of theory. The experimentally determined structure-reactivity relationship was successfully reproduced; the relative reactivity of the (E,E)-, (E,Z)-, (Z,E)-, and (Z,Z)-configured allyl vinyl ethers can be attributed to unfavorable interactions caused by pseudoaxial substituents within the chairlike transition-state structures. As expected, the isolated assessment of the calculated ground-state or transition-state stabilities is not suitable to explain the experimentally observed structure-reactivity relationship.