Diphenylcarbenes spectroscopy

Suggestive evidence for the protonation of diphenylcarbene was uncovered in 1963.10 Photolysis of diphenyldiazomethane in a methanolic solution of lithium azide produced benzhydryl methyl ether and benzhydryl azide in virtually the same ratio as that obtained by solvolysis of benzhydryl chloride. These results pointed to the diphenylcarbenium ion as an intermediate in the reaction of diphenylcarbene with methanol (Scheme 3). However, many researchers preferred to explain the O-H insertion reactions of diarylcarbenes in terms of electrophilic attack at oxygen (ylide mechanism),11 until the intervention of car-bocations was demonstrated by time-resolved spectroscopy (see Section III).12... 

Diphenylcarbene (diphenylmethylene) can be generated from diphenyldiazomethane (373) by direct irradiation or by triplet sensitization.1156 The intermediate multiplicity then controls the subsequent reactions the singlet carbene inserts into the O—H bond of methanol, whereas the triplet carbene adds to an a I Irene (Scheme 6.173). It has been found that singlet and triplet diphenylcarbenes are in rapid equilibrium relative to the rates of reactions.1157,1158 Competitive quenching experiments (to obtain k1 and kTS) and laser flash spectroscopy (Section 3.7 to obtain k2 and kST) allowed the determination of the free energy difference between the singlet and triplet states of carbene ( 20kJ mol J). 

For arylcarbenes, low-temperature EPR spectroscopy has shown that the ground state is a bent triplet with two orthogonal singly occupied orbitals The first excited state is an electrophilic singlet and, in the case of diphenylcarbene, the free energy difference between these two states has been estimated to be 5.1 1 kcal moTh... 

A two-electron oxidation of allenes (1) (A = S, NMe) has been found to yield carbenes (2) (Scheme 1) dimerization and reaction with (2,2,6,6-tetraamethyl-piperidin-l-yl)oxyl (TEMPO) support a triplet ground state as predicted by computations. Triplet diphenylcarbenes bearing bulky substituents at the para positions have been generated and studied in rigid matrixes at low temperatures by electron spin resonance (ESR) and UV-Vis spectroscopy as well as by laser flash photolysis (LFP) in solution at room temperature. Their reactivity upon LFP was shown to be dominated by dimerization unless triplet carbene quenchers (such as oxygen and cyclohexadiene) were present. 

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