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REACTION INTERMEDIATES The product cannot be obtaned by direct addition of the diene on ther dienophile, because the cyclottatetraene double bonds involved are not conjugated, as the Diels-Alder reaction requests. Moreover, the double bonds must have a cis-planar conformation, as in this case: and this is impossible in the lowest energy conformation of cycloottateetraene
On the basis of the structure of the product, the hypotesys is that before the addition of ther dienophile a tautomerization of the cyclootattetraene to an intermediate possessing the necessary structural features takes place. The reaction becames: The corresponding kinetic law is d[P]/dt = k2 [I][TCE] That with the steady-state approximation can be rewritten as d[I]/dt = 0 = k1 [COT] – k-1 [I] - k2 [I][TCE] from which we have
then using [I] in the rate law that is In experimental conditions of pseudo-first order d[P]/dt = kobs [COT] and considering that the experimental equation is equal tothe teorical one this is a line equation in which kobs is reported on kobs/[TCE] and the INTERCETTA is k1 value and the slope is k-1/k1