Heterolytic radicals

Figure 4.17. Ion-pair formation in a heterolytic radical fragmentation.

Andrieux CP, Gonzalez F, Saveant J-M (2001) Homolytic and heterolytic radical cleavage in the kolbe reaction electrochemiccd oxidation of arylmethyl carboxylate ions. J Electrocuicil Chem 498 171-180... 

A free-radical reaction is a chemical process which involves molecules having unpaired electrons. The radical species could be a starting compound or a product, but the most common cases are reactions that involve radicals as intermediates. Most of the reactions discussed to this point have been heterolytic processes involving polar intermediates and/or transition states in which all electrons remained paired throughout the course of the reaction. In radical reactions, homolytic bond cleavages occur. The generalized reactions shown below illustrate the formation of alkyl, vinyl, and aryl free radicals by hypothetical homolytic processes. 

Structure-reactivity relationships can be probed by measurements of rates and equiUbria, as was diseussed in Chapter 4. Direct comparison of reaction rates is used relatively less often in the study of radical reactions than for heterolytic reactions. Instead, competition methods have frequently been used. The basis of competition methods lies in the rate expression for a reaction, and the results can be just as valid a comparison of relative reactivity as directly measured rates, provided the two competing processes are of the same kinetic order. Suppose that it is desired to compare the reactivity of two related compounds, B—X and B—Y, in a hypothetical sequence ... 

Nevertheless, many free-radical processes respond to introduction of polar substituents, just as do heterolytic processes that involve polar or ionic intermediates. The substituent effects on toluene bromination, for example, are correlated by the Hammett equation, which gives a p value of — 1.4, indicating that the benzene ring acts as an electron donor in the transition state. Other radicals, for example the t-butyl radical, show a positive p for hydrogen abstraction reactions involving toluene. ... 

It has recently been suggested that a free radical mechanism i.e., homo-lytic cleavage of the oxygen-oxygen bond rather than the heterolytic cleavage pictured) may be involved in the reaction of some substituted benzophenones and peroxyacetic acid. 

The homolysis of tertiary hypochlorites for the production of oxy radicals is well known." The ease with which secondary hypohalites decompose to ketones has hampered the application of hypohalites for transannular reactions. However the tendency for the base-catalyzed heterolytic decomposition decreases as one passes from hypochlorites to hypobromites tohypoidites. Therefore the suitability of hypohalites for functionalization at the angular positions in steroids should increase in the same order. Since hypoidites (or iodine) do not react readily with ketones or carbon-carbon double bonds under neutral conditions hypoiodite reactions are more generally applicable than hypochlorite or hypobromite decompositions. 

The broadest classification of reactions is into the categories of heterolytic and homolytic reactions. In homolytic (free radical) reactions, bond cleavage occurs with one electron remaining with each atom, as in... 

In certain cases, e.g. with Z = tert-butyl, the experimental findings may better be rationalized by an ion-pair mechanism rather than a radical-pair mechanism. A heterolytic cleavage of the N-R bond will lead to the ion-pair 4b, held together in a solvent cage ... 

Diacyl peroxides may also undergo non-radical decomposition via the carboxy inversion process to form an acylcarbonate (Scheme 3.27).46 The reaction is of greatest importance for diaroyl peroxides with electron withdrawing substituents and for aliphatic diacyl peroxides (36) where R is secondary, tertiary or ben/,yl.157 The reaction is thought to involve ionic intermediates and is favored in polar solvents 57 and by Lewis acids.158 Other heterolytic pathways for peroxide decomposition have been described.150... 

A number of mechanisms for thermal decomposition of persulfate in neutral aqueous solution have been proposed.232 They include unimolccular decomposition (Scheme 3.40) and various bimolecular pathways for the disappearance of persulfate involving a water molecule and concomitant formation of hydroxy radicals (Scheme 3.41). The formation of polymers with negligible hydroxy end groups is evidence that the unimolecular process dominates in neutral solution. Heterolytic pathways for persulfate decomposition can he important in acidic media. 

In ATRP, the initiator (RX) determines the number of growing chains. Ideally, the degree of polymerization is given by eq. 7 and the molecular weight by cq. 8. Note the appearance of the initiator efficiency (/ ) in the numerator of these expressions. In practice, the molecular weight is ofien higher than anticipated because the initiator efficiency is decreased by side reactions. In some cases, these take the form of heterolytic decomposition or elimination reactions. Further redox chemistry of the initially formed radicals is also known. The initiator efficiencies are dependent on the particular catalyst employed. 

Simple mechanistic considerations easily explain why heterolytic dissociation of the C — N bond in a diazonium ion is likely to occur, as a nitrogen molecule is already preformed in a diazonium ion. On the other hand, homolytic dissociation of the C —N bond is very unlikely from an energetic point of view. In heterolysis N2, a very stable product, is formed in addition to the aryl cation (8.1), which is a metastable intermediate, whereas in homolysis two metastable primary products, the aryl radical (8.2) and the dinitrogen radical cation (8.3) would be formed. This event is unlikely indeed, and as discussed in Section 8.6, homolytic dediazoniation does not proceed by simple homolysis of a diazonium ion. 

Szele and Zollinger (1978 b) have found that homolytic dediazoniation is favored by an increase in the nucleophilicity of the solvent and by an increase in the elec-trophilicity of the P-nitrogen atom of the arenediazonium ion. In Table 8-2 are listed the products of dediazoniation in various solvents that have been investigated in detail. Products obtained from heterolytic and homolytic intermediates are denoted by C (cationic) and R (radical) respectively for three typical substituted benzenediazonium salts and the unsubstituted salt. A borderline case is dediazoniation in DMSO, where the 4-nitrobenzenediazonium ion follows a homolytic mechanism, but the benzenediazonium ion decomposes heterolytically, as shown by product analyses by Kuokkanen (1989) the homolytic process has an activation volume AF = + (6.4 0.4) xlO-3 m-1, whereas for the heterolytic reaction AF = +(10.4 0.4) x 10 3 m-1. Both values are similar to the corresponding activation volumes found earlier in methanol (Kuokkanen, 1984) and in water (Ishida et al., 1970). 

In conclusion, it is very likely that the influence of solvents on the change from the heterolytic mechanism of dissociation of the C —N bond in aromatic diazonium ions to homolytic dissociation can be accounted for by a mechanism in which a solvent molecule acts as a nucleophile or an electron donor to the P-nitrogen atom. This process is followed by a one- or a two-step homolytic dissociation to an aryl radical, a solvent radical, and a nitrogen molecule. In this way the unfavorable formation of a dinitrogen radical cation 8.3 as mentioned in Section 8.2, is eliminated. 

Mechanistically there is ample evidence that the Balz-Schiemann reaction is heterolytic. This is shown by arylation trapping experiments. The added arene substrates are found to be arylated in isomer ratios which are typical for an electrophilic aromatic substitution by the aryl cation and not for a homolytic substitution by the aryl radical (Makarova et al., 1958). Swain and Rogers (1975) showed that the reaction takes place in the ion pair with the tetrafluoroborate, and not, as one might imagine, with a fluoride ion originating from the dissociation of the tetrafluoroborate into boron trifluoride and fluoride ions. This is demonstrated by the insensitivity of the ratio of products ArF/ArCl in methylene chloride solution at 25 °C to excess BF3 concentration. 

It has been suggested that the initial formation of iodine on addition of iodide to a diazonium salt solution is caused by oxidation of the iodide by excess nitrite from the preceding diazotization. Packer and Taylor (1985) demonstrated that, if urea was added as a nitrite scavenger (see Sec. 2.1) to a diazotization solution, that solution produced iodine much more rapidly than a portion of the same diazonium salt solution not containing urea, but eventually the latter reaction too appeared to follow the same course. This confirms the role of excess nitrite, and suggests that the iodo-de-diazoniation steps only occur in the presence of iodine or triiodide (I -). The same authors also found that iodo-de-diazoniation is much slower under nitrogen. All these observations are consistent with radical-chain processes, but not with a heterolytic iodo-de-diazoniation. 

The proximity of the reaction centre to the second phenyl ring makes the aryl cation, formed by heterolytic dediazoniation, a serious competitor to the aryl radical. This is evident in Table 10-6 from various examples where the yield obtained in aqueous mineral acid (varying from 0.1 m to 50% H2S04) is higher than in the presence of an electron-transfer reagent. This competition was studied in three types of product analyses by Cohen s group (Lewin and Cohen, 1967 Cohen et al., 1977), by Huisgen and Zahler (1963 a, 1963 b), and by Bolton et al. (1986). 

The situation is not as clearly solved in a positive or negative sense for arenediazo phenyl ethers. Here three alternatives have to be considered, namely an intramolecular rearrangement of the arenediazo phenyl ether (Scheme 12-11, A), and two types of intermolecular rearrangement, either by heterolytic dissociation into a diazonium ion and a phenoxide ion (B) or by homolytic dissociation into a radical pair or two free radicals (C). 

---