Nitrone cyclisations: the development of a semi-quantitative model from ab initio calculations

Ab initio and DFT calculations have been applied to the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrones with olefins. The transition states for these structures were located and activation energies were calculated. These results were used to develop a semi-quantitative model, Simple Addition of Substituent Effects Model, which accounts for the experimentally observed regio- and stereoselectivity.