On the mechanism of catalytic isomerization of xylenes. Molecular orbital studies

On the basis of CNDO/2 molecular orbital calculations, we postulate the following detailed mechanism for the catalytic isomerization of xylenes which explains the initial product distributions and also our previous finding that the reaction is intramolecular: (i) adsorption of xylene on a surface acid site to form a Wheland-type complex; (ii) disrotatory cyclization of the protonated species into a bicyclo[3, 1, 0]hexenyl complex; (iii) migration of the methylene bridge to a new side of the pentagonal ring; (iv) change of the new bicyclic species back into the corresponding Wheland-type complex; (v) desorption of the xylene isomer from the surface of the catalyst. The overall rate determining step can be either of the surface reactions (ii) or (iv).