Chlorine dioxide reactions with aromatic hydrocarbons

Chemical/Physical. Under atmospheric conditions, the gas-phase reaction with OH radicals and nitrogen oxides resulted in the formation of p-tolualdehyde (Atkinson, 1990). Kanno et al. (1982) studied the aqueous reaction of p-xylene and other aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, o-and /n-xylene, and naphthalene) with hypochlorous acid in the presence of ammonium ion. They reported that the aromatic ring was not chlorinated as expected but was cleaved by chloramine forming cyanogen chloride. The amount of cyanogen chloride formed increased at lower pHs (Kanno et al, 1982). Products identified from the OH radical-initiated reaction of p-xylene in the presence of nitrogen dioxide were 3-hexene-2,5-dione, p-tolualdehyde, and 2,5-dimethylphenol (Bethel et al., 2000). 

It has been proposed that aromatic solvents, carbon disulfide, and sulfur dioxide form a complex with atomic chlorine and that this substantially modifies both its overall reactivity and the specificity of its reactions.126 For example, in reactions of Cl with aliphatic hydrocarbons, there is a dramatic increase in Ihe specificity for abstraction of tertiary or secondary over primary hydrogens in benzene as opposed to aliphatic solvents. At the same time, the overall rate constant for abstraction is reduced by up to two orders of magnitude in the aromatic solvent.1"6 The exact nature of the complex responsible for this effect, whether a ji-coinplex (24) or a chlorocyclohexadienyl radical (25), is not yet resolved.126- 22... 

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