Acrolein photochemistry

M. Reguero, M. Olivucci, F. Bernardi, and M. A. Robb,/. Am. Cbem. Soc., 116, 2103 (1994), and references cited therein. Excited State Potential Surface Crossings in Acrolein A Model for Understanding the Photophysics and Photochemistry of aP-Enones. 

Photochemical Decomposition. The photochemistry of acrolein Is simply that there is very little primary photochemical reaction. Although earlier studies concluded that polymer formation was the dominant feature of the reaction scheme, Coomber and Pitts (57) have observed no polymer formation with very small product yields. The observed products at 313 nm were C0(4> =... 

Acrolein is a small organic molecule with some very interesting features. It can be considered as a prototype of molecular systems containing two conjugated chromo-phores, namely C=C and C=0, a common feature for many natural molecules. Also, the presence of two characteristic functional groups at the same time has important consequences in the chemistry and photochemistry of acrolein. For these reasons, its UV absorption spectrum has been extensively studied in different solvents [104—110] as well as in the gas phase [111-113], and a solvatochromic blue shift of the n —> n transition of the C=0 group has been observed in going from the gas phase to aqueous... 

Johnstone, D.E., and J.R. Sodeau (1992), Photochemistry of the matrix-isolated a, 8-unsaturated aldehydes acrolein, methacrolein and crotonaldehyde at 4.2 K, /. Chem. Soc., Faraday Trans., 88, 409-415. 

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