Archive for August 13th, 2025

Energy decomposition analysis of hindered alkenes: Tetra t-butylethene and others.

Wednesday, August 13th, 2025

In the previous post,[1] I introduced the N=N double bond in nitrosobenzene dimer, arguing that even though it was a formal double bond, its bond dissociation energy made it nonetheless a very weak double bond! This was backed up by a technique known as energy decomposition analysis or EDA. Here I use a variant of this method  known as  NEDA to look at some other strained alkenes, including the famously non-existent tetra t-Butyl ethene.

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References

  1. H. Rzepa, "The mysterious N=N double bond in nitrosobenzene dimer.", 2025. https://doi.org/10.59350/rzepa.29383