Hydrogen atom, thermodynamics

Alpha-scission is not favored thermodynamically but does occur. Alpha-scission produces a methyl radical, which can extract a hydrogen atom from a neutral hydrocarbon molecule. The hydrogen extraction produces methane and a secondary or tertiary free radical (Equation 4-3). 

The success of such reactions depends on the intramolecular hydrogen transfer being faster than hydrogen atom abstraction from the stannane reagent. In the example shown, hydrogen transfer is favored by the thermodynamic driving force of radical stabilization, by the intramolecular nature of the hydrogen transfer, and by the steric effects of the central quaternary carbon. This substitution pattern often favors intramolecular reactions as a result of conformational effects. 

Hyperconjugation has also been invoked to account for the greater thermodynamic stability of alkenes in which the double bond is not terminal, e.g. (30), compared with isomeric compounds in which it is, e.g. (31) in (30) there are nine hyperconjugable a-hydrogen atoms, compared with only five in (31) ... 

Attempts to polymerise isobutene by free radical catalysis have all failed [16,17] and copolymerisation experiments show that the t-butyl radical has no tendency to add to isobutene. The reasons for these facts are not at all obvious. Evidently, they cannot be thermodynamic and therefore they must be kinetic. One factor is probably that the steric resistance to the formation of polymer brings with it a high activation energy [17], and that the abstraction by a radical of a hydrogen atom from isobutene, to give the methallyl radical, has a much smaller activation energy. This reaction will also be accelerated statistically by the presence of six equivalent hydrogen atoms. 

Said this, we can let the reader to recall Fig. 1.15, where we depicted amorphous-like phase regions at grain boundaries as the pathways open for preferential diffusion of hydrogen atoms. Apparently, an alloy can benefit from some fraction of amorphous phase to improve kinetics of hydrogen absorption, but complete amorphization of crystalline lattice lowers capacity for storing hydrogen [156]. Mechanochemical activation is therefore a complex process where kinetic and thermodynamic effects must be firstly well understood, and then optimized. 

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