My teacher commented on Anti aromatic compounds as being less stable compounds as it doesn't undergo resonance inspite of having π-bonds/electron pairs in conjugation. I didn't understand why so. Can you help?
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As according to Molecular Orbital theory , when anti- aromatic compound is formed, the electron goes to anti bonding, and is unpaired even, which reduces it's stability., Or we can say that in anti- aromatic,the plane of electron cloud twists there bonds between carbons, making it unstable, thus resonance is not possible. Antiaromaticity is a characteristic of a cyclic molecule with a π electron system that has higher energy due to the presence of 4n electrons in it. Unlike aromatic compounds, which follow Hückel's rule ([4n+2] π electrons) and are highly stable, antiaromatic compounds are highly unstable and highly reactive. To avoid the instability of antiaromaticity, molecules may change shape, becoming non-planar and therefore breaking some of the π interactions. Greater the delocalisation energy(resonance energy) of a compound, more stable it is. The resonance energy can be calculated using Huckel Molecular Orbital Theory(HMOT). Antiaromatic compounds have zero resonance energy hence are unstable. According to HMOT, Delocalisation energy=( Pi electron binding energy) - (total energy of isolated double bonds in a classical structure)
