Radical substitution deuteration

Further evidence for a bromine-bridged radical comes from radical substitution of optically active 2-bromobutane. Most of the 2,3-dibromobutane which is formed is racemic, indicating that the stereogenic center is involved in the reaction. A bridged intermediate that can react at either carbon can explain the racemization. When the 3-deuterated reagent is used, it can be shown that the hydrogen (or deuterium) that is abstracted is replaced by bromine with retention of stereochemistry These results are also consistent with a bridged bromine radical. 

Fig. 1.41. Deoxygenation/ deuteration of alcohols via a radical substitution reaction.

Hypervalent sulfonium radicals, H3S [188] and (CH3)2SH [189], have been shown to be metastable on the microsecond time scale when generated as partially deuterated species and studied by variable-time NR mass spectrometry. The metastability was attributed to the formation of excited electronic states, as the ground doublet states were calculated to be unbound and predicted to dissociate exothermically and without a barrier by S-H bond cleavage [188,189]. Hypervalent sulfonium radicals of the R3S type have been the long sought-after intermediates of radical substitution in sulfides in solution, but have never been detected [190]. The NRMS studies, combined with ab initio calculations, show that such intermediates most likely do not exist on the ground state potential energy surface, but may be of importance in photochemical reactions. 

Ishikawa and co-workers (50, 51) have also reported the photodegradation of backbone disilane polymers (Scheme III). In this case, as in the previous example with pendant silyl substituents, silicon-silicon bond homolysis to produce silyl radicals was the predominant process. When irradiated in toluene, the photodegraded polymer showed a substantial -SiH band at 2150 cm in the IR spectrum. Similarly, NMR spectroscopic examination of the irradiated polymer showed evidence of silyl radical substitution into the solvent toluene. Irradiation of the polymeric disilane in deuterated methanol produced no bands due to Si-D in the IR spectrum and resulted in the incorporation of the elements of methanol into the chain ends (as revealed by NMR spectroscopy). For the phenyl-substituted polymer, the NMR evidence indicated that <5% of rearranged cyclohexadiene derivatives were formed. 

A distinction between these four possibilities can be made on the basis of the kinetic isotope effect. There is no isotope effect in the arylation of deuterated or tritiated benzenoid compounds with dibenzoyl peroxide, thereby ruling out mechanisms in which a C5— bond is broken in the rate-determining step of the substitution. Paths (ii) and (iii,b) are therefore eliminated. In path (i) the first reaction, Eq. (6), is almost certain to be rate-determining, for the union of tw o radicals, Eq. (7), is a process of very low activation energy, while the abstraction in which a C—H bond is broken would require activation. More significant evidence against this path is that dimers, Arz, should result from it, yet they are never isolated. For instance, no 4,4 -dinitrobiphenyl is formed during the phenylation of... 

This last result bears also on the mode of conversion of the adduct to the final substitution product. As written in Eq. (10), a hydrogen atom is eliminated from the adduct, but it is more likely that it is abstracted from the adduct by a second radical. In dilute solutions of the radical-producing species, this second radical may be the adduct itself, as in Eq. (12) but when more concentrated solutions of dibenzoyl peroxide are employed, the hydrogen atom is removed by a benzoyloxy radical, for in the arylation of deuterated aromatic compounds the deuterium lost from the aromatic nucleus appears as deuterated benzoic acid, Eq. (13).The over-all reaction for the phenylation of benzene by dibenzoyl peroxide may therefore be written as in Eq, (14). 

To select between these two alternative structures it was necessary to synthesize a labeled analog. Three hydrogen atoms of the methyl moiety of the ester group were substituted for deuterium. One of the principal pathways of fragmentation of [M N2]+ ions involves the loss of CH3 radical. Since all R substitutes in diazo ketones 4-1 were also methyls it was important to detect what group exactly is eliminated from the [M N2]+ ion. The spectrum of deuterated sample has confirmed that the methyl radical of the ester moiety leaves the parent ion. As a result the cyclic structure 4-2 was selected as the most probable. The ketene structure 4-3 is hardly able to trigger this process, while for heterocyclic ion 4-2 it is highly favorable (Scheme 5.22). 

Regents which are active upon irradiation with benzene are olefins and dienes None of these react photochemically with borazine. Recently, the photolysis of benzene at X = 184.9 run with D2 has been shown to produce a small amount of CgHsD (4> = 0.01) This is contrast to the very efficient deuteration at the boron site of borazine (4 = 0.90). Hexafluoroacetone as the absorbing species reacts with borazine to produce a B-alkoxyborazine substitution product. Reaction of this reagent with benzene, on the other hand, involves the CF3 radicals and the products are addition rather than substitution products ss)... 

The use of the pseudohalogen nitryl iodide, prepared in situ from iodine and silver nitrite, has been found to add to an alkene in what is strictly an anti-Markownikov fashion. The explanation for this lies in that nitryl iodide adds in a radical manner, initially forming the more stable secondary radical after addition of NO2.115 Treatment of 3-0-acetyl-5,6-dideoxy-1,2-0-isopropylidene-a-D-xy/o-hex-5-enofuranose with nitryl iodide was found to afford an unstable adduct, with the nitro group appended to C-6, and iodine attached to the more substituted C-5.116-118 Similarly, treatment of benzyl 2-0-benzyl-3,4-dideoxy-a-D-g/ycero-pent-3-enopyranoside (70, Scheme 19) with nitryl iodide afforded the unstable adduct 71, which, upon exposure to mild base (NaHC03), afforded the eliminated product, namely benzyl 2-0-benzyl-3,4-dideoxy-4-nitro-a-D-g(ycew-pent-3-enopyranoside (72). The eliminated product was then readily converted into benzyl 2-0-benzyl-3,4-dideoxy-(3-L-r/ireo-pentopyranoside (73) by reduction with sodium borohydride. Addition of deuteride using NaBD4 led to axial deuteration atC-3. 

The lifetimes of hypervalent radicals have been found to depend rather dramatically on isotope substitution. For example, dimethyloxonium, (CH3)2OH, dissociates completely on a 1 -ps time scale when formed by collisional reduction of the stable cation (CH3)2OH+. By contrast, (CH3)2OD furnishes an abundant survivor ion in the +NR+ mass spectrum that is evidence that the deuterated hypervalent radical is metastable [178,179]. From the time scale of the NR measurements and the survivor ion relative intensities one can estimate that (CH3)2OH dissociates >5 times faster than (CH3)2OD. Similar isotope effects have been observed for CH3OH [180], C2H5OH [181], and hypervalent ammonium radicals, e.g., CH3NH [182], (CH3)2NH [60], (CH3)3NH [183], and [pyrrolidinium] [184], which are metastable only as deuterated species. 

The two-site jump model appears to work well for this polymer. However, it should be noted that the density of transitions is large here due to the larger spin quantum number of deuterium (/= 1), the fact that there are three of them in the isotopically substituted polymeric radical, and that the coupling constant for each deuterium is smaller by a factor of 6.4 compared to the protonated radical. Coupling these facts to the visual fitting process, these fits may not be unique. In fact, when the same model is applied to the temperature dependence of the protonated PMMA spectra (Fig. 14.2), reasonable visual fits could not be obtained with this model. Deuteration of the... 

Encounters between silyl radicals in solution or in the gas phase usually result in recombination and disproportionation (45, 46). Disproportionation results in the production of silanes and highly reactive silenes. The disproportionation reaction is thermodynamically favorable because of the formation of a silicon-carbon double bond, which, although subsequently chemically reactive, is worth —39 kcal/mol (44). For pentamethyldisilanyl radicals, disproportionation is kinetically competitive with radical dimerization (46). In an earlier study, Boudjouk and co-workers (47) demonstrated conclusively by isotopic substitution and trapping that the silyl radicals generated by photolysis undergo disproportionation, as well as, presumably, dimerization (Scheme I). In deuterated methanol, the silanes produced were predominantly undeuterated, whereas methoxymethyldiphenylsilane was extensively deuterated in the a position. The results of these experiments strongly implicated the substituted silene produced by disproportionation. 

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