The importance of fluoro and trifluoromethyl substituents
in drug
effectiveness prompted the computational exploration of fluorine-containing
substituents in valuable synthetic cycloadditions. Diels–Alder
or 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions of typical reactants, cyclopentadiene, N-phenyldiazoacetamide, tetrazine, and N-phenylsydnone involving fluorine-containing substituents (F, CF3, and COCF3) were studied with M06-2X density functional
theory. Inductive and conjugative effects influence normal and inverse
electron-demand reactions differently. These results provide a guide
to the design and use of cycloadditions for the introduction of fluoro
and trifluoromethyl substituents in synthetic processes.