Rep:Jed15Yr3TS

Exercise 1: Reaction of Butadiene with Ethylene

Found below is a simple MO diagram for the formation of the butadiene/ethene transition state, containing simple 'symmetric' or antisymmetric' labels, with images for the HOMO and LUMO of each of the starting reactants. The four molecular orbitals in the transition state formed from these MOs can be visualised as Jmol images below.

Butadiene HOMO (a1)

Ethene HOMO (s3)

Butadiene LUMO (s2)

Ethene LUMO (a3)

Transition State 1 (a4)

Transition State 2 (s4)

Transition State 3 (s5)

Transition State 4 (a5)