Fragmentations homolytic radicals

Acyclic alkoxycarbenes can fragment by homolytic (radical) or heterolytic (ionic) pathways. For example, the allyloxymethoxycarbene (74) fragments in benzene at 110 °C to a radical pair that recombines (Scheme 7.38). The radical pair can... 

The mass spectrum of a ketone generally has an intense molecular ion peak. Ketones fragment homolytically at the C—C bond adjacent to the C=0 bond, which results in the formation of a cation with a positive charge shared by two atoms. The alkyl group leading to the more stable radical is the one that is more easily cleaved. 

The photochemistry of aldehydes and ketones has been extensively examined (Turro, 1978). In high concentrations or in the absence of oxygen, a ketone such as acetone can fragment homolytically to an alkyl-acyl radical pair by the well-known Norrish type I cleavage mechanism ... 

Triplet sensitization of sulfonium salts proceeds exclusively by the homolytic pathway, and that the only arene escape product is benzene, not biphenyl or acetanilide. However, it is difficult to differentiate between the homolytic or heterolytic pathways for the cage reaction, formation of the isomeric halobiaryls. Our recent studies on photoinduced electron transfer reactions between naphthalene and sulfonium salts, have shown that no meta- rearrangement product product is obtained from the reaction of phenyl radical with diphenylsulfinyl radical cation. Similarly, it is expected that the 2- and 4-halobiaryl should be the preferred products from the homolytic fragments, the arene radical-haloarene radical cation pair. The heterolytic pathway generates the arene cation-haloarene pair, which should react less selectively and form the 3-halobiaryl, in addition to the other two isomers. The increased selectivity of 2-halobiaryl over 3-halobiaryl formation from photolysis of the diaryliodonium salts versus the bromonium or chloronium salts, suggests that homolytic cleavage is more favored for iodonium salts than bromonium or chloronium salts. This is also consistent with the observation that more of the escape aryl fragment is radical derived for diaryliodonium salts than for the other diarylhalonium salts. 

Consider now the behaviour of the HF wave function 0 (eq. (4.18)) as the distance between the two nuclei is increased toward infinity. Since the HF wave function is an equal mixture of ionic and covalent terms, the dissociation limit is 50% H+H " and 50% H H. In the gas phase all bonds dissociate homolytically, and the ionic contribution should be 0%. The HF dissociation energy is therefore much too high. This is a general problem of RHF type wave functions, the constraint of doubly occupied MOs is inconsistent with breaking bonds to produce radicals. In order for an RHF wave function to dissociate correctly, an even-electron molecule must break into two even-electron fragments, each being in the lowest electronic state. Furthermore, the orbital symmetries must match. There are only a few covalently bonded systems which obey these requirements (the simplest example is HHe+). The wrong dissociation limit for RHF wave functions has several consequences. 

Carbonyl compounds can undergo various photochemical reactions among the most important are two types of reactions that are named after Norrish. The term Norrish type I fragmentation refers to a photochemical reaction of a carbonyl compound 1 where a bond between carbonyl group and an a-carbon is cleaved homolytically. The resulting radical species 2 and 3 can further react by decarbonylation, disproportionation or recombination, to yield a variety of products. 

The first step in cracking is the thermal decomposition of hydrocarbon molecules to two free radical fragments. This initiation step can occur by a homolytic carbon-carbon bond scission at any position along the hydrocarbon chain. The following represents the initiation reaction ... 

Thermal cracking takes place without a catalyst at temperatures up to 900 °C. The exact processes are complex, although they undoubtedly involve radical reactions. The high-temperature reaction conditions cause spontaneous homolytic breaking of C-C and C-H bonds, with resultant formation of smaller fragments. We might imagine, for instance, that a molecule of butane... 

Bond dissociation energy, D (Section 5.8) The amount of energ r needed to break a bond homolytically and produce two radical fragments. 

Various methods for estimating transfer constants in radical polymerization have been devised. The methods are applicable irrespective of whether the mechanism involves homolytic substitution or addition-fragmentation. 

If a bond breaks in such a way that each fragment gets one electron, free radicals are formed and such reactions are said to take place by homolytic or free-radical mechanisms. 

A free-radical process consists of at least two steps. The first step involves the formation of free radicals, usually by homolytic cleavage of bond, that is, a cleavage in which each fragment retains one electron ... 

During the last two decades, Bentrude et al. [70] has shown that phosphoranyl radicals exhibiting very slow a- and P-fragmentations react with alkyl disulfides via Sh2 homolytic substitution (Scheme 35) [70b]. The reactivity of phosphoranyl radicals in these Sh2 reactions depends strongly on the substituents attached to the phosphorus atom and on the structure of the disulfides [70c]. 

The efficient formation of the cyclophane suggests that the [DDD, TCNQ] charge-transfer complex is converted to the ion-radical pair via a thermal electron transfer. Subsequent fragmentation of the resulting DDD+ and a homolytic coupling with TCNQ leads then to a zwitterionic intermediate which collapses to the cyclophane within the ion pair, as summarized in Scheme 20. 

The mechanism of successive homolytic fragmentation of tetroxide and formed radicals seems to be the very probable [167,193,194] ... 

Three different mechanisms of perester homolytic decay are known [3,4] splitting of the weakest O—O bond with the formation of alkoxyl and acyloxyl radicals, concerted fragmentation with simultaneous splitting of O—O and C—C(O) bonds [3,4], and some ortho-substituted benzoyl peresters are decomposed by the mechanism of decomposition with anchimeric assistance [3,4]. The rate constants of perester decomposition and values of e = k l2kd are collected in the Handbook of Radical Initiators [4]. The yield of cage reaction products increases with increasing viscosity of the solvent. 

Interestingly, homolytic substitution at boron does not proceed with carbon centered radicals [8]. However, many different types of heteroatom centered radicals, for example alkoxyl radicals, react efficiently with the organoboranes (Scheme 2). This difference in reactivity is caused by the Lewis base character of the heteroatom centered radicals. Indeed, the first step of the homolytic substitution is the formation of a Lewis acid-Lewis base complex between the borane and the radical. This complex can then undergo a -fragmentation leading to the alkyl radical. This process is of particular interest for the development of radical chain reactions. 

AN+- (Reitstoen and Parker, 1991). In other words, the triad of reactive fragments produced in (63) in the charge-transfer excitation of the EDA complex with A-nitropyridinium ion is susceptible to mutual (pairwise) annihilations leading to the Wheland intermediate W and the nucleophilic adduct N (Scheme 12), so that the observed second-order rate constant ku for the spectral decay of ArH+- in Table 3 actually represents a composite of k2 and k2. A similar competition between the homolytic and nucleophilic reactivity of aromatic cation radicals is observed in the reaction triad (55)... 

Heating cleaves a weak 0-0 bond homolytically to give two oxy radicals. Fragmentation of the C1-C6 and C9-C14 bonds gives two radicals which recombine to give a cyclic diacyl peroxide. 

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