Chemical chain reaction, example

We often want to prevent or retard free-radical reactions. For example, oxygen in the air oxidizes and spoils foods, solvents, and other compounds mostly by free-radical chain reactions. Chemical intermediates may decompose or polymerize by free-radical chain reactions. Even the cells in living systems are damaged by radical reactions, which can lead to aging, cancerous mutations, or cell death. 

Still more reactive among atmospheric ROS are a variety of radicals (sometimes called free radicals). Recall from Section 1.6.1 that radicals are species that contain an unpaired valence electron therefore, the reaction of any radical with a chemical other than another radical still leaves an electron unpaired. This leads to free radical chain reactions an example is a combustion flame. Such a chain reaction is terminated when a participating radical is inactivated by reaction with another radical, which causes two unpaired electrons to pair with each other. 

In order for a soHd to bum it must be volatilized, because combustion is almost exclusively a gas-phase phenomenon. In the case of a polymer, this means that decomposition must occur. The decomposition begins in the soHd phase and may continue in the Hquid (melt) and gas phases. Decomposition produces low molecular weight chemical compounds that eventually enter the gas phase. Heat from combustion causes further decomposition and volatilization and, therefore, further combustion. Thus the burning of a soHd is like a chain reaction. For a compound to function as a flame retardant it must intermpt this cycle in some way. There are several mechanistic descriptions by which flame retardants modify flammabiUty. Each flame retardant actually functions by a combination of mechanisms. For example, metal hydroxides such as Al(OH)2 decompose endothermically (thermal quenching) to give water (inert gas dilution). In addition, in cases where up to 60 wt % of Al(OH)2 may be used, such as in polyolefins, the physical dilution effect cannot be ignored. 

Collectors ndFrothers. Collectors play a critical role ia flotation (41). These are heteropolar organic molecules characterized by a polar functional group that has a high affinity for the desired mineral, and a hydrocarbon group, usually a simple 2—18 carbon atom hydrocarbon chain, that imparts hydrophobicity to the minerals surface after the molecule has adsorbed. Most collectors are weak acids or bases or their salts, and are either ionic or neutral. The mode of iateraction between the functional group and the mineral surface may iavolve a chemical reaction, for example, chemisorption, or a physical iateraction such as electrostatic attraction. 

Most ester-forming reactions are reversible. Depending on circumstances, these reactions may be either undesirable side reactions, for example hydrolytic chain scissions occurring during processing, or useful reactions when chemical modification or polymer recycling is considered. 

Chain reactions do not continue indefinitely, but in the nature of the reactivity of the free radical or ionic centre they are likely to react readily in ways that will destroy the reactivity. For example, in radical polymerisations two growing molecules may combine to extinguish both radical centres with formation of a chemical bond. Alternatively they may react in a disproportionation reaction to generate end groups in two molecules, one of which is unsaturated. Lastly, active centres may find other molecules to react with, such as solvent or impurity, and in this way the active centre is destroyed and the polymer molecule ceases to grow. 

Disregarding the actual chemical mechanism of each monomer reaction, a good example of polymers made by chain reactions are the vinyl polymers (by definition, polymer made from monomers having the vinyl group CH2=CH-, as the reactive group). Formulae of some typical vinyl polymers were reported in Table 1. 

The problem of competition of the molecular reaction (direct route) and chain reaction (complicated, multistage route) was firstly considered in the monograph by Semenov [1], The new aspect of this problem appeared recently because the quantum chemistry formulated the rule of conservation of orbital symmetry in chemical and photochemical reactions (Woodward-Hofmann rule [4]). Very often the structure of initial reactants suggests their direct interaction to form the same final products, which are also obtained in the chain reaction, and the thermodynamics does not forbid the reaction with AG < 0. However, the experiment often shows that many reactions of this type occur in a complicated manner through several intermediate stages. For example, the reaction... 

One more reason for which chain reactions have an advantage over molecular reactions is the restrictions that are imposed on the elementary act by the quantum-chemical rule of conservation of symmetry of orbits of bonds, which undergo rearrangement in the reaction [4]. If this rule is applied, the reaction, even if it is exothermic, requires very high activation energy to occur. For example, the reaction... 

Photochemical reactions, like any chemical reaction, can be classified into various groups, depending on the reactants and products, for example, elimination, isomerization, dimerization, reduction, oxidation, or chain reaction. One important practical field of photochemistry is organic photochemistry. In solution photochemical reactions, the nature of the solvent can markedly influence the reaction. The absorbtion of the solvent and of the reaction products is an important parameter for the choice of the reaction conditions. It is useful to have a solvent with a relatively low absorption in the desired wavelength. Sometimes photosensitizers are used these are substances that absorb light to further activate another substance, which decomposes. 

Supercritical fluids have also been used purely as the solvent for polymerization reactions. Supercritical fluids have many advantages over other solvents for both the synthesis and processing of materials (see Chapter 6), and there are a number of factors that make scCCH a desirable solvent for carrying out polymerization reactions. As well as being cheap, nontoxic and nonflammable, separation of the solvent from the product is achieved simply by depressurization. This eliminates the energy-intensive drying steps that are normally required after the reaction. Carbon dioxide is also chemically relatively inert and hence can be used for a wide variety of reactions. For example, CO2 is inert towards free radicals and this can be important in polymerization reactions since there is then no chain transfer to the solvent. This means that solvent incorporation into the polymer does not take place, giving a purer material. 

Chemical reaction that leads to the formation of ring structures in or from polymer chains. Note 1 Examples of cyclization along polymer chains are (a) cyclization of... 

Why do all organic chemicals just sitting around the laboratory at room temperature have the potential to explode spontaneously The answer is that they can react with O2 in the air at room temperature in chain reactions to form organic peroxides, which can spontaneously react explosively upon shaking or opening the cap. Organic peroxides are examples of compounds that have fuel (C and H atoms) in the same compound with the oxidant, and these are soHd and Hquid explosives similar to dynamite and TNT, which we will discuss later in this chapter. 

Now we consider some very positive examples of this type of reaction sequence. Some organic molecules have weak C-H bonds that are easily broken. This fact has been exploited for some key industrial reactions. Some of these weak chemical bonds are hsted in Table 10-1. We will refer to these molecules and bonds throughout this chapter because weak bonds cause fast initiation steps in chain reactions. 

Three conditions must be fulfilled obtain complete conversion of the reactants, H2 and CI2. The first condition is that thermal equilibrium of the system be favorable. This condition is fulfilled at low and intermediate temperatures, where formation of the product HC1 is thermodynamically favored. At very high temperatures, equilibrium favors the reactants, and thereby serves to limit the fractional conversion. The second requirement is that the overall reaction rate be nonnegligible. There are numerous examples of chemical systems where a reaction does not occur within reasonable time scales, even though it is thermodynamically favored. To initiate reaction, the temperature of the H2-CI2 mixture must be above some critical value. The third condition for full conversion is that the chain terminating reaction steps not become dominant. In a chain reaction system, as opposed to a chain-branching system discussed below, the reaction progress is very sensitive to the competition between chain initiation and chain termination. This competition determines the amount of chain carriers (batons) in the system and thereby the rate of conversion of reactants. 

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