DFT study the interaction of β‐cyclodextrin with benzyl azide and phenyl acetylene in synthesis of 1,2,3‐triazoles

Abstract

The phenyl acetylene and benzyl azide cycloaddition reaction in water in the presence of β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD) as a phase transfer catalyst (PTC) can get a better yield in a shorter time. The interaction between β‐CD and phenyl acetylene or benzyl azide plays an important role in this reaction. This paper studies the complexes of β‐CD with phenyl acetylene and benzyl azide using density functional theory (DFT) method. In order to find out the orientations of guests in the cavity of β‐CD, binding energy and deformation energy are investigated, and the calculated results are confirmed by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR). The data from single point energy indicate that the inclusion complexes can improve the solubilities of phenyl acetylene and benzyl azide in water. The 13C and 15N spectra show that the most obvious variation concentrates on C6 and C8 of phenyl acetylene and N15 of benzyl azide in complexes. Mulliken charge and frontier orbital are employed for revealing the charge distribution. The effect of β‐CD is discussed in terms of the calculated parameters. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.