Experimental and theoretical study of the 2-alkoxyethylidene rearrangement

J Org Chem. 2011 Mar 18;76(6):1584-91. doi: 10.1021/jo1020536. Epub 2011 Feb 22.

Abstract

The rearrangement of 2-ethoxyethylidene, generated photochemically from a nonnitrogenous precursor, leads to ethyl vinyl ether. Although this product could result, in principle, from a 1,2-hydrogen shift and/or a 1,2-ethoxy shift in the carbene, a deuterium labeling study indicates an essentially exclusive preference for hydrogen migration. The experimental results are in agreement with CCSD and W1BD calculations for the simpler 2-methoxyethylidene system that show a prohibitively large barrier for the methoxy shift and a negligible barrier for the hydride shift.