Haloarene radical cations

The caged species may escape geminate recombination and produce various species that can initiate cationic polymerization. Solvent (RH) often participates in these reactions producing protonic acids. As shown in Eq. (44), protonic acids are also formed by reaction of radical cations with aryl radicals or by Friedel-Crafts arylation. Up to 70% of the protonic acid is formed upon photolysis of diaryliodonium salts [205]. In addition to initiation by protons, arenium cations and haloarene radical cations can react directly with monomer. The efficiency of these salts as cationic initiators depends strongly on the counterions. Those with complex anions such as hexafluoroantimonate, hexafluorophosphate, and triflate are the most efficient. 

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. 

In the presence of an electron rich donor molecule an alternative to direct fission or reaction via an excimer is the formation of an exciplex or radical anion/radical cation ion pair (Eq. 2). The radical anion has been viewed as the key intermediate which undergoes fission to aryl radical and halide ion (Eq. 3). With polyhaloarenes there is an additional option. A polychloroarene radical anion, for example, has two possible modes for bond fission (a) fission to produce aryl radical and chloride ion or (b) fission to form an aryl carbanion and chlorine atom (Scheme 6). The options for fragmentation of a haloarene radical anion... 

Photonucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions of phenyl selenide and telluride with haloarenes have also been proven to involve the S jlAr mechanism, with the formation of anion radical intermediates. Another photonucleophihc substitution, cyanomethylation, proves the presence of radical cations in the reaction mechanism. Liu and Weiss have reported that hydroxy and cyano substitution competes with photo substitution of fluorinated anisoles in aqueous solutions, where cation and anion radical intermediates have been shown to be the key factors for the nucleophilic substitution type. Rossi et al. have proposed the S j lAr mechanism for photonucleophihc substitution of carbanions and naphthox-ides to halo anisoles and l-iodonaphthalene. > An anion radical intermediate photonucleophilic substitution mechanism has been shown for the reactions of triphenyl(methyl)stannyl anion with halo arenes in liquid ammonia. Trimethylstannyl anion has been found to be more reactive than triphenylstannyl anion in the photostimulated electron- transfer initiation step. 

The direct photolysis of alkyl or aryl halides in solution to form carbon-centered radicals is rarely used in organic synthesis." Alkyl iodides usually afford mixtures of radical and ionic products, while alkyl bromides can produce radical-derived products but in low yield. A notable exception is the photocycliza-tion of haloarenes, which has been shown to produce carbon-centered radicals that can add to aromatic rings. A similar reaction has recently been observed on irradiation of iodoheterocycles, with substituted benzenes or electron-poor alkenes, to form arylated or alkylated heterocycles in good yield. Related reactions have also been reported on irradiation of 4-chloroanilines in the presence of (electron-rich) alkenes, although in this case, the alkylations appear to involve the formation of a phenyl cation. An alternative approach to form carbon-centered radicals is to irradiate the alkyl iodide or bromide in the presence of triethylamine this is proposed to form an amine-haHde exciplex, which cleanly breaks down to give a carbon-centered radical and a halide anion. Cossy and co-workers have shown this to be a fast, convenient, and chemoselective method of radical generation, which has recently been used to prepare the bicyclic core of ( )-bisabolangelone (Scheme 1). ... 

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