Deeper Insight into the Diels-Alder Reaction through the Activation Strain Model

In this Focus Review, we present the application of the so-called Activation Strain Model of chemical reactivity to the Diels–Alder cycloaddition reaction. To this end, representative recent examples have been selected to illustrate the power of this new computational approach to gain a deeper quantitative understanding of this fundamental process in chemistry. We cover a wide range of issues, such as, the “endo-rule”, reactivity trends emerging from systematic variation in the reactants’ strain, and cycloaddition reactions involving relevant species in material science, that is, fullerenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nanotubes.