Alkanes stability

Dawkins and Taylor109 dispersed poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or polystyrene (PS) particles in n-alkanes stabilized by AB block copolymers of styrene and dimethyl-siloxane. In these cases, styrene blocks act as anchors and dimethylsiloxane blocks give a surface layer. The thickness 6 of the dimethylsiloxane layer was determined by viscosity measurements as a function of the molecular weight of dimethylsiloxane blocks. 

Reimers and Schork [94, 95] report the use of PMMA to stabihze MM A miniemulsions enough to effect predominant droplet nucleation. Emulsions stabilized against diffusional degradation by incorporating a polymeric costabilizer were produced and polymerized. The presence of large numbers of small droplets shifted the nucleation mechanism from micellar or homogeneous nucleation, to droplet nucleation. Droplet diameters were in the miniemulsion range and reasonably narrowly distributed. On-hne conductance measurements were used to confirm predominant droplet nucleation. The observed reaction rates were dependent on the amount of polymeric costabilizer present. The latexes prepared with polymeric costabilizer had lower polydispersities (1.006) than either latexes prepared from macroemulsions (1.049) or from alkane-stabilized miniemulsions (1.037). 

Heats of combustion can be used to measure the relative stability of isomeric hydrocarbons They tell us not only which isomer is more stable than another but by how much Consider a group of C His alkanes... 

In this section you have seen how heats of com bustion can be used to determine relative stabilities of isomeric alkanes In later sections we shall expand our scope to include the experimentally determined heats of certain other reactions such as bond dissociation energies (Section 4 16) and heats of hydrogenation (Section 6 2) to see how AH° values from various sources can aid our understanding of structure and reactivity... 

The small differences m stability between branched and unbranched alkanes result from an interplay between attractive and repulsive forces within a molecule (intramo lecular forces) These forces are nucleus-nucleus repulsions electron-electron repul sions and nucleus-electron attractions the same set of fundamental forces we met when... 

The heat evolved on burning an alkane increases with the number of car bon atoms The relative stability of isomers may be determined by com paring their respective heats of combustion The more stable of two iso mers has the lower heat of combustion... 

We assess the relative stability of alkyl radicals by measuring the enthalpy change (AH°) for the homolytic cleavage of a C—H bond m an alkane... 

The alkanes have low reactivities as compared to other hydrocarbons. Much alkane chemistry involves free-radical chain reactions that occur under vigorous conditions, eg, combustion and pyrolysis. Isobutane exhibits a different chemical behavior than / -butane, owing in part to the presence of a tertiary carbon atom and to the stability of the associated free radical. 

Sulfonic acids may be hydrolytically cleaved, using high temperatures and pressures, to drive the reaction to completion. As would be expected, each sulfonic acid has its own unique hydrolytic desulfonation temperature. Lower alkane sulfonic acids possess excellent hydrolytic stability, as compared to aromatic sulfonic acids which ate readily hydrolyzed. Flydrolytic desulfonation finds use in the separation of isomers of xylene sulfonic acids and other substituted mono-, di-, and polysulfonic acids. 

These polyol-stabilized alkan olamine titanate solutions are used ia a method to improve the wet strength of paper (115,118). The addition of 1—2... 

Most organic free radicals have very short lifetimes, but certain structural features enhance stability. Radicals without special stabilization rapidly dimerize or disproportionate. The usual disproportionation process for alkyl radicals involves transfer of a hydrogen from the carbon P to the radical site, leading to formation of an alkane and an alkene ... 

The haloform reaction of unsymmetrical perfluoroalkyl and co-hydroper-fluoroalkyl trifluororaethyl ketones gives the alkane corresponding to the longer alkyl chain [54] (equation 53) If the methyl group contains chlorine, the reaction can take different pathways, leading to loss of chlorine (equation 54), because of the variable stability of the chlorine-substituted methyl carbanions in alkali. 

Earlier (Sections 2.18, 3.11) we saw how to use heats of combustion to compare the stabilities of isomeric alkanes. We can do the sane thing with isomeric alkenes. Consider the heats of combustion of the four isomeric alkenes of molecular fonnula C4Hj5. All undergo combustion according to the equation... 

Thermal stabilization of polyolefins has been first demonstrated for low-molecular models-normal structure alkanes [29]. It has been shown that metallic sodium and potassium hydroxide with absorbent birch carbon (ABC) as a carrier are efficient retardants of thermal destruction of n-heptane during a contact time of 12-15 s up to the temperature of 800°C [130]. Olefins and nitrous protoxide, previously reported as inhibitors of the hydrocarbon thermal destruction, are ineffective in this conditions. 

Figure 10.2 Energy diagram for alkane chlorination. The relative rates of formation of tertiary, secondary, and primary radicals are the same as their stability order.

The enhanced selectivity of alkane bromination over chlorination can be explained by turning once again to the Hammond postulate. In comparing the abstractions of an alkane hydrogen by Cl- and Br- radicals, reaction with Br- is less exergonic. As a result, the transition state for bromination resembles the alkyl radical more closely than does the transition state for chlorination, and the stability of that radical is therefore more important for bromination than for chlorination. 

Simple alkyl halides can be prepared by radical halogenation of alkanes, but mixtures of products usually result. The reactivity order of alkanes toward halogenation is identical to the stability order of radicals R3C- > R2CH- > RCH2-. Alkyl halides can also be prepared from alkenes by reaction with /V-bromo-succinimide (NBS) to give the product of allylic bromination. The NBS bromi-nation of alkenes takes place through an intermediate allylic radical, which is stabilized by resonance. 

What accounts for the stability of conjugated dienes According to valence bond theory (Sections 1.5 and 1.8), the stability is due to orbital hybridization. Typical C—C bonds like those in alkanes result from a overlap of 5p3 orbitals on both carbons. In a conjugated diene, however, the central C—C bond results from conjugated diene results in part from the greater amount of s character in the orbitals forming the C-C bond. 

Carbonyl compounds are more acidic than alkanes for the same reason that carboxylic acids are more acidic than alcohols (Section 20.2). In both cases, the anions are stabilized by resonance. Enolate ions differ from carboxylate ions, however, in that their two resonance forms are not equivalent—the form with the negative charge on oxygen is lower in energy than the form with the charge on carbon. Nevertheless, the principle behind resonance stabilization is the same in both cases. 

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