Advances in Cycloadditions: Theory, Practice, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Cycloaddition reactions occupy a prominent place in both synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry. The ever-growing number of papers, from the 100 papers published 50 years ago to the present-day 800+ papers published per year, witnesses the richness and diversity of this field.

Our current understanding of cycloaddition reactions relies upon the interplay between experimental, mechanistic, and theoretical results.

The synthetic effectiveness of cycloaddition reactions relies upon several key points. First, cycloadditions in both the inter- and intra-molecular version lead to products much more complex than the reactants. Next, a number of cycloadditions are able to generate carbo- or heterocyclic rings containing several contiguous stereocenters. As an intriguing topic, the absolute configuration of such newly formed stereocenters can now be controlled by the asymmetric version of cycloadditions in several ways, namely by metal-catalyzed or organo-catalyzed processes. Moreover, following the paradigm of green chemistry, a number of cycloadditions can be performed in water or aqueous media as an environmentally friendly approach. Finally, thanks to the latent array of functionalities of the cycloadducts, the latter can be transformed into a variety of other molecules, including many natural products.

Physical organic chemistry concepts and methods are widely used to elucidate the variety of cycloaddition mechanisms. The stereoconservativity (or not) of the reaction, solvent and isotope effects, and the kinetic determination of activation parameters are of great help to establish the degree of cycloaddition synchronicity and concertedness, the intermediacy of zwitterionic species, and so on.

Cycloaddition reactions have been a favorite playground for theoretical chemists for many decades since their rationalization by the orbital-based Woodward–Hoffman rules in the 1960s. Modern approaches to understanding the reactivity of cycloadditions range from ab initio calculations (based on both the wavefunction ansatz and density functional theory) to conceptual approaches exploiting calculated reactivity indices.

This Special Issue aims to present recent advances in the theory, practice, and applications of cycloadditions. It is our pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript to this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Dr. Alessandro Ponti
Dr. Giorgio Molteni
Guest Editors

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