The transition structures for the hydroborations of ethylene, propene, cis-2-butene, trans-2-butene, isobutene, acetylene, 2-butyne, allene, methylallene, and ethylallene by borane, ethylene and propene by methylborane, ethylene by methylfluoroborane and dimethylborane, and ethylene by diborane have been located with ab initio molecular orbital calculations and the 3-21G basis set. The parent reactions of borane with ethylene and acetylene have also been studied at higher theoretical levels. Substituent effects on the stabilities of complexes and on the activation energies are in accord with experimental data.
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Wang et al. (1990) studied this question.