Alkenes photochemical reactions

We will show here the classification procedure with a specific dataset [28]. A reaction center, the addition of a C-H bond to a C=C double bond, was chosen that comprised a variety of different reaction types such as Michael additions, Friedel-Crafts alkylation of aromatic compounds by alkenes, or photochemical reactions. We wanted to see whether these different reaction types can be discerned by this... 

The important hydrocarbon classes are alkanes, alkenes, aromatics, and oxygenates. The first three classes are generally released to the atmosphere, whereas the fourth class, the oxygenates, is generally formed in the atmosphere. Propene will be used to illustrate the types of reactions that take place with alkenes. Propene reactions are initiated by a chemical reaction of OH or O3 with the carbon-carbon double bond. The chemical steps that follow result in the formation of free radicals of several different types which can undergo reaction with O2, NO, SO2, and NO2 to promote the formation of photochemical smog products. 

The photochemical reactions of organic compounds attracted great interest in the 1960s. As a result, many useful and fascinating reactions were uncovered, and photochemistry is now an important synthetic tool in organic chemistry. A firm basis for mechanistic description of many photochemical reactions has been developed. Some of the more general types of photochemical reactions will be discussed in this chapter. In Section 13.2, the relationship of photochemical reactions to the principles of orbital symmetry will be considered. In later sections, characteristic photochemical reactions of alkenes, dienes, carbonyl compounds, and aromatic rings will be introduced. 

The complementary relationship between thermal and photochemical reactions can be illustrated by considering some of the same reaction types discussed in Chapter 11 and applying orbital symmetry considerations to the photochemical mode of reaction. The case of [2ti + 2ti] cycloaddition of two alkenes can serve as an example. This reaction was classified as a forbidden thermal reaction (Section 11.3) The correlation diagram for cycloaddition of two ethylene molecules (Fig. 13.2) shows that the ground-state molecules would lead to an excited state of cyclobutane and that the cycloaddition would therefore involve a prohibitive thermal activation energy. 

Photochemical reaction of the ester 114 afforded the alkene 115 and three products derived from 115. A mechanism, involving dimerization of 114 leading to a dithietane intermediate 116, was proposed. Trapping of active sulfur species, generated from 116, with dienes was also described (75CB630). 

Photochemical reactions of carbonyl compounds with alkenes give the oxetanes (Scheme 30). The stereochanical course depends on the substituents of the alkenes [16]. The reactions proceed with the retention of the configuration of the alkenes for the electron accepting substituent, e.g., CN. The stereochemical integrity is lost for the donating group, e.g., OCH. ... 

Intermolecular photocycloadditions of alkenes can be carried out by photosensitization with mercury or directly with short-wavelength light.179 Relatively little preparative use has been made of this reaction for simple alkenes. Dienes can be photosensitized using benzophenone, butane-2,3-dione, and acetophenone.180 The photodimerization of derivatives of cinnamic acid was among the earliest photochemical reactions to be studied.181 Good yields of dimers are obtained when irradiation is carried out in the crystalline state. In solution, cis-trans isomerization is the dominant reaction. 

Alkene-metal complexes are usually prepared by a process by which some other ligand is dissociated from the metal. Both thermal and photochemical reactions are used. 

However, the pathways for these reactions, particularly in the gas phase, have been only -.rtially characterized. In a wide variety of these reactions, coordinatively unsaturated, highly reactive metal carbonyls are produced [1-18]. The products of many of these photochemical reactions act as efficient catalysts. For example, Fe(C0)5 can be used to generate an efficient photocatalyst for alkene isomerization, hydrogenation, and hydrosilation reactions [19-23]. Turnover numbers as high as 3000 have been observed for Fe(C0)5 induced photocatalysis [22]. However, in many catalytically active systems, the active intermediate has not been definitively determined. Indeed, it is only recently that significant progress has been made in this area [20-23]. 

Hashimoto, S. and Akimoto, H. (1987). Absorption spectra of contact-charge-transfer bands and photochemical reactions of simple alkenes in the cryogenic oxygen matrix. J. Phys. Chem. 91, 1347-1354... 

There are a variety of photochemical reactions that non-conjugated dienes can undergo. One of these that is currently of considerable interest is the reactivity brought about by electron-accepting sensitizers such as the cyanoarenes. The photoreactivity of these systems involves the photochemical excitation of the sensitizer to an excited state7. Thereafter, the reactivity is dependent on the ease of oxidation of the alkene or diene. With the transfer of an electron from the diene to the photoexcited sensitizer a radical cation is formed. It is this intermediate that brings about the various processes which occur within the diene systems under investigation. 

Cyclobutane formation via light-induced [2 + 2] cycloaddition is probably one of the best studied photochemical reactions and has been reviewed thoroughly up to 1972 (Houben-Weyl, Vols. 4/5 a and 4/5 b). The most important types of C —C double-bond chromophores undergoing such reactions arc alkenes, 1,3-dienes, styrenes, stilbenes, arenes, hetarenes, cycloalk-2-enones, cyclohexa-2,4(and 2,5)-dienones, 1,4-benzoquinones, and heteroanalogs of these cyclic unsaturated carbonyl compounds. For p notocyciodimerizations see Houben-Weyl, Vol. 4/5 a, p 278 and for mixed [2 + 2] photocycloadditions of these same chromophores to alkenes see Section 1.3.2.3. 

The UV irradiation of the 4,5-dihydro-1,3,5-oxazaphosph(V)olene 39 leads to a cyclic elimination. Analogously to the thermal [5 + 3 + 2] cyclo elimination, the photochemical reaction generated nitrile ylides reacted with alkynes and alkenes to yield the 2/f-pyrrole 40 and the pyrrol-l-ine 41, respectively (equation 17)71. 

During slow thermal chlorination, elimination of HC1 from the monochloride with the resultant formation of an alkene followed by chlorine addition may be the dominant route to yield dichloroalkanes. This mechanism, however, is negligible in rapid thermal or photochemical reactions. 

The irradiation of benzenes with alkenes provides a fascinating array of photochemical reactions, not least because it converts the aromatic substrates into polycyclic, non-aromatic products. In principle, benzene can undergo reaction across the 1,2-(ortho). 1,3-(meta), or 1,4-(para) positions the 1,3-cycloaddition is structurally the most complex, but it is the predominant mode of reaction for many of the simplest benzene/alkene systems. The products are tricyclic compounds with a fusion of two five-membered rings and one three-membered ring, and an example is the reaction of benzene with vinyl acetate (3.411. For monosubstituted benzenes there can be a high... 

It is a commonly accepted belief that the planar excited states of simple alkenes, formed by light absorption or energy transfer, decay very rapidly to more stable nonplanar species.6 The perpendicular geometry is believed to be the stablest configuration of both the lowest singlet and triplet states. In this particular case it is obvious that reactions (10) and (11) are virtually the same process, although, in chemical parlance, reaction (10) is part of an internal conversion and (11) is the last step in a photochemical reaction. 

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