Bingel-Hirsch addition on endohedral metallofullerenes: kinetic versus thermodynamic control

Abstract

An extensive theoretical study of the Bingel-Hirsch addition of bromomalonate on scandium nitride endohedral fullerenes has been carried out. The prototypical and highly symmetrical Sc3N@I(h)-C80, with a structure that satisfies the isolated pentagon rule (IPR), and the non-IPR Sc3N@D3(6140)-C68 fullerene show analogous reaction paths despite the distinct topology of the carbon networks and different rotation freedom of the internal nitride cluster. For the two metallofullerenes, our results predict that the reaction takes place under kinetic control yielding open-cage fulleroids on [6,6] bonds, which is in good agreement with experimental data. The theoretical studies also show that predicting the reactivity of endohedral metallofullerenes is not straightforward and often an accurate analysis of the potential energy surface is required.