Acene endo-peroxides

Dufraisse has shown that the oxygen liberation from acene endo-peroxides is quite often accompanied by chemiluminescence, the spectrum of which is usually similar to the fluorescence of the corresponding hydrocarbon,271-273 although this point seems to require confirmation.274 According to Bowen,275 the most likely processes involved are... 

Interestingly, the most efficient chemiluminescent reaction so far observed during acene endo-peroxide decomposition has been exhibited by the 1,4-endo-peroxide (41) [38]. However, this very efficient chemiluminescence evidently requires treatment of (41) with acids, and it has been shown [45] that it is not the direct decomposition of the endo-peroxide to yield (43) that produces most of the excitation energy, but the acid catalyzed cleavage of (41) to yield the compounds (44) and (45). The reaction itself had been previously described [46-47]. 

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