Theoretical Studies of Water's and Methanol's Effects on Alcoholysis of N-Benzyl-3-oxo-β-s

The mechanisms about the water's and methanol's effects on the alcoholysis of N-benzyl-3-oxo-β-sultam together with their differences have been studied by using density functional theory at the B3LYP/6-31G* level. The results, in comparison with a previous study on the relative reaction without the assistance of water and methanol, show that the added water or methanol can remarkably reduce the energy barrier of alcoholysis reaction of N-benzyl-3-oxo-β-sultam and the most favorite pathway is the breaking of C-N bond instead of S-N. It is also found that the reaction energy barrier of methanol-assisted alcoholysis is a little higher than that of the water-assisted one.