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The mechanism of ketene-diene reactions has been studied both experimentally and theoretically. Careful experiments of the reactions of diphenylketene (1) with cyclic (s-cis) 1,3-dienes [cyclopentadiene (2) and cyclohexa-1,3-diene (3)] lead to the first direct detection of the Diels-Alder cycloadducts (10 and 11) by low-temperature NMR spectroscopy. The initially formed cycloadducts are converted to the final Staudinger products, cyclobutanones (6 and 7), by [3,3] sigmatropic (Claisen) rearrangements. In contrast, ketene 1 reacts with open-chain 1,3-dienes [2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene (4) and 1-methoxy-1,3-butadiene ( 5)] to afford initially both the Staudinger-type (8, 9) and Diels-Alder-type cycloadducts (12, 13). The Staudinger cycloadducts (8, 9) are converted eventually to Diels-Alder products (12, 13) by the retro-Claisen rearrangement. Thus, ketene recognizes dienes in cycloadditions as ketenophiles different from olefins. [4 + 2] and [2 + 2] cycloadducts are generated and can be intermediates or products flexibly according to diene structures.

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