Remote substituent effects on radical addition

Other experimental data seem to provide support for an implicit penultimate model. Thus, simple (monomeric) model radicals for the propagating radical chain 

It is known that the penultimate unit influences the conformation of both model radicals and propagating radicals.32 3 Since addition requires a particular geometric arrangement of the reactants, there are enthalpic barriers to overcome for addition to take place and also potentially significant effects on the entropy of activation. Comparisons of the rate constants and activation parameters for homopropagation with those for addition of simple model radicals to the same monomers also provide evidence for significant penultimate unit effects (Section 4.5.4). 

There is also clear evidence that penultimate group effects are important in determining the stereochemistry of addition in many homopolymerizations and copolymerizations. This is made evident from the fact that most homopolymers have tacticity (i.e. P(/ i)f0.5, Section 4.2). Indeed, for some homopolyinerizations there is evidence that the configuration of the pcnpcnultimatc unit may also influence the stereochemistry of addition/9 If penpen- and penultimate units 

Penultimate unit effects are also important in both substitution40 41 and in addition-fragmentation chain transfer.42 44 Some examples are provided in Sections 6.2, 6.2.2.4, 6.2.3.4 and 9.5. 

Rased on the above data, it would seem unusual if reactivity of the propagating species in copolymerization were insensitive to the nature of the last added monomer units. However, while there are ample experimental data to suggest that copolymerizations should be subject to penultimate unit effects that affect the rate and/or copolymer composition, the origin and magnitude of the effect is not always easily predictable. 

There is a strong dependence on the particular initiating species. The data in Tabic 7.4 were provided in Fischer and Radom s review.  

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In contrast, the need to evaluate the relative rates of competing radical reactions pervades synthetic planning of radical additions and cyclizations. Further, absolute rate constants are now accurately known for many prototypical radical reactions over wide temperature ranges.19,33 3S These absolute rate constants serve to calibrate a much larger body of known relative rates of radical reactions.33 Because rates of radical reactions show small solvent dependence, rate constants that are measured in one solvent can often be applied to reactions in another, especially if the two solvents are similar in polarity. Finally, because the effects of substituents near a radical center are often predictable, and because the effects of substituents at remote centers are often negligible, rate constants measured on simple compounds can often provide useful models for the reactions of complex substrates with similar substitution patterns. 

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