Reinvestigation of the Isotope Effects for the Claisen and Aromatic Claisen Rearrangements:  The Nature of the Claisen Transition States

The aliphatic Claisen rearrangement of allyl vinyl ether and the aromatic Claisen rearrangement of allyl phenyl ether are investigated in a combined experimental and calculational study. Theoretically predicted kinetic isotope effects (KIEs) at all levels disagree with about half of the literature experimental heavy-atom isotope effects. New experimental ¹³C and ²H isotope effects were determined by multisite NMR methodology at natural abundance, and ¹⁷O isotope effects were determined by novel NMR methodology. These new experimental isotope effects are inconsistent with the literature values and agree well the high-level predicted KIEs, suggesting that the prior theory/experiment disagreement results from inaccuracy in the experimental KIEs. A one-dimensional tunneling correction is found to improve kinetic isotope effect predictions in a number of reactions and is found to be sufficient to provide differences between predicted and experimental heavy-atom isotope effects on the order of the experimental uncertainty in the reactions studied. The best agreement between experimental and predicted isotope effects is seen for the highest-level calculations. On the basis of the experimentally supported transition state geometries, the nature of the Claisen and aromatic Claisen transition states is discussed.