Excited species diazo compounds

Diazo compounds are photoreduced to hydrazines in the presence of silanes and stannanes in a process that apparently involves initial H-atom transfer to an excited state of the diazo compound.105 LFP studies of reactions of Bu3SnH with excited states of diazo compounds 40 and 41 found fast reactions. The singlet diazo species reacted with Bu3SnH about as fast as singlet carbonyl compounds, whereas the triplet diazo species reacted with tin hydride somewhat slower than triplet excited states of carbonyl compounds.100,105... 

Triplet sensitization of two 1,2-diaryIdiazoethanes in methanol solution gave rise to stilbenes, by intramolecular 1,2-H shifts, and ethers, by reaction of the corresponding carbenes with methanol.This method of generating the intermediate carbenes bypasses the singlet excited diazo compounds, and thus eliminates the possibility that the products arise by direct reaction of these excited species. The results go some way towards establishing that 1,2-H and 1,2-C shifts can compete with alcohol trapping of a spin-equilibrated carbene. 

Natural polymers such as albumin, gelatin, fish glue, shellac, and gum arabic received attention up to the early 1900 s, after which time other materials such as bichromate, diazo compounds, iron salts, and silver halides were added to resins in order to hasten or accomplish their crosslinking. These systems were neither photopolymerization nor photocrosslinkable polymers. Instead, the added second component, when excited by light, produced a species which itself caused the formation of radical sites on a prepolymer or polymer chain which then led to cross-linking. 

Photochemical elimination reactions include all those photoinduced reactions resulting in the loss of one or more fragments from the excited molecule. Loss of carbon monoxide from type I or a-cleavage of carbonyl compounds has been previously considered in Chapter 3. Other types of photoeliminations, to be discussed here, include loss of molecular nitrogen from azo, diazo, and azido compounds, loss of nitric oxide from organic nitrites, and loss of sulfur dioxide and other miscellaneous species. 

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