Rotational isotope effects

It should, however, be mentioned that Mulliken s study of the BO system has been followed over the years by many others, An extensive study by Jenkins and McKellar (1932) should be mentioned explicitly. This study involved the long wavelength band of BO. The same method as that used by both Jevons and Mulliken to produce the BO was used in this work. The new (present day) quantum mechanics was used in the theoretical interpretation. Both the vibrational and the rotational isotope effects were observed and agree with theory. One motivation for this work was to determine how well the isotopic ratio of the square roots of the two relevant isotopic masses (10B and nB) agrees with the ratio obtained from Aston s mass spectrometric measurements and hence how well isotopic mass ratios determined from band spectra compare with those obtained using Aston s mass spectrograph. 

This result was attributed to the mass effect of deuterium slowing the rotation of the exomethylene in the formation of product. Subsequently, Olson collaborated with Houk to characterize rotational isotope effects both experimentally and theoretically. 

A reasonable interpretation of the data would have reversible ring opening to an orthogonal TMM-like biradical follwed by rate-determining closure to product. If a rotation isotope effect of 1.5 is involved in all processes, the experimental... 

The isotope effects of reactions of HD + ions with He, Ne, Ar, and Kr over an energy range from 3 to 20 e.v. are discussed. The results are interpreted in terms of a stripping model for ion-molecule reactions. The technique of wave vector analysis, which has been successful in nuclear stripping reactions, is used. The method is primarily classical, but it incorporates the vibrational and rotational properties of molecule-ions which may be important. Preliminary calculations indicate that this model is relatively insensitive to the vibrational factors of the molecule-ion but depends strongly on rotational parameters. 

However, a number of examples have been found where addition of bromine is not stereospecifically anti. For example, the addition of Bf2 to cis- and trans-l-phenylpropenes in CCI4 was nonstereospecific." Furthermore, the stereospecificity of bromine addition to stilbene depends on the dielectric constant of the solvent. In solvents of low dielectric constant, the addition was 90-100% anti, but with an increase in dielectric constant, the reaction became less stereospecific, until, at a dielectric constant of 35, the addition was completely nonstereospecific.Likewise in the case of triple bonds, stereoselective anti addition was found in bromination of 3-hexyne, but both cis and trans products were obtained in bromination of phenylacetylene. These results indicate that a bromonium ion is not formed where the open cation can be stabilized in other ways (e.g., addition of Br+ to 1 -phenylpropene gives the ion PhC HCHBrCH3, which is a relatively stable benzylic cation) and that there is probably a spectrum of mechanisms between complete bromonium ion (2, no rotation) formation and completely open-cation (1, free rotation) formation, with partially bridged bromonium ions (3, restricted rotation) in between. We have previously seen cases (e.g., p. 415) where cations require more stabilization from outside sources as they become intrinsically less stable themselves. Further evidence for the open cation mechanism where aryl stabilization is present was reported in an isotope effect study of addition of Br2 to ArCH=CHCHAr (Ar = p-nitrophenyl, Ar = p-tolyl). The C isotope effect for one of the double bond carbons (the one closer to the NO2 group) was considerably larger than for the other one. ... 

The electronic, rotational and translational properties of the H, D and T atoms are identical. However, by virtue of the larger mass of T compared with D and H, the vibrational energy of C-H> C-D > C-T. In the transition state, one vibrational degree of freedom is lost, which leads to differences between isotopes in activation energy. This leads in turn to an isotope-dependent difference in rate - the lower the mass of the isotope, the lower the activation energy and thus the faster the rate. The kinetic isotope effects therefore have different values depending on the isotopes being compared - (rate of H-transfer) (rate of D-transfer) = 7 1 (rate of H-transfer) (rate of T-transfer) 15 1 at 25 °C. 

A disadvantage of this technique is that isotopic labeling can cause unwanted perturbations to the competition between pathways through kinetic isotope effects. Whereas the Born-Oppenheimer potential energy surfaces are not affected by isotopic substitution, rotational and vibrational levels become more closely spaced with substitution of heavier isotopes. Consequently, the rate of reaction in competing pathways will be modified somewhat compared to the unlabeled reaction. This effect scales approximately as the square root of the ratio of the isotopic masses, and will be most pronounced for deuterium or... 

Kratzer and Loomis as well as Haas (1921) also discussed the isotope effect on the rotational energy levels of a diatomic molecule resulting from the isotope effect on the moment of inertia, which for a diatomic molecule, again depends on the reduced mass. They noted that isotope effects should be seen in pure rotational spectra, as well as in vibrational spectra with rotational fine structure, and in electronic spectra with fine structure. They pointed out the lack of experimental data then available for making comparison. 

From his first paper (Mulliken 1925a), Mulliken understood that the band heads did not represent a transition from a non-rotating initial state to non-rotating final state. Yet, he used the band heads to study the vibrational isotope effect since he could measure the band heads more easily and since the rotational energy differences are very small compared to the vibrational energy difference. From the theory, the terms linear in n and n" (ain and bin") arise from the harmonic approximation with the coefficients ai and bi corresponding to the harmonic vibrational frequencies in the... 

It should be noted in passing that Mulliken also examined the isotope effect on the quadratic terms in the equations for the band heads. These ratios should theoretically show an isotope effect proportional to the reduced masses of the diatomic molecules (rather than the square root of the reduced masses). While Mulliken concludes that these ratios also confirm that the molecule is BO rather than BN, the four experimental ratios show a fairly large scatter so that the case for identifying the molecule is not as strong as that from the experimental a and b ratios. He also measured some of the rotational lines in the spectra of BO and considered the measured and theoretical isotope effects. Here one experimental isotope ratio checks the theoretically calculated ratio quite well, but for the other two the result was unsatisfactory. However, Mulliken judged the error to be within the experimental uncertainty. 

The BO approximation, which assumes the potential surface on which molecular systems rotate and vibrate is independent of isotopic substitution, was discussed in Chapter 2. In the adiabatic regime, this approximation is the cornerstone of most of isotope chemistry. While there are BO corrections to the values of isotopic exchange equilibria to be expected from the adiabatic correction (Section 2.4), these effects are expected to be quite small except for hydrogen isotope effects. 

To further illustrate the application of Equation 14.35 (the limiting behavior of the low pressure IE), consider the case when only the external rotations are adiabatic (translations do not contribute to the isotope effect). In this case the ratio of Q s reduces to a ratio of ratios of moments of inertia, which, provided the structure does not change on passing from active molecules to activated complex, is unity. In this simplified example, the isotope effect reduces to a simple ratio of the number of states and state densities in the activated complex and energized (active) molecules for the light (1) and heavy (h) molecules. 

Several investigations concerned with the identification of these lines succeeded, for instance, in the case of H2O, in elucidating the rotational spectrum in excited vibrational states 356). Through comparison of wavelengths and intensities of many lines in H2O , H2 0 and DjO isotopic effects could be studied in these excited vibrational levels 357,358) Perturbations of rotational levels by Coriolis resonance which mixes different levels could be cleared up through the assignment and wavelength measurement of some DCN and HCN laser lines 359). 

Nearly all kinetic isotope effects (KIE) have their origin in the difference of isotopic mass due to the explicit occurrence of nuclear mass in the Schrodinger equation. In the nonrelativistic Bom-Oppenheimer approximation, isotopic substitution affects only the nuclear part of the Hamiltonian and causes shifts in the rotational, vibrational, and translational eigenvalues and eigenfunctions. In general, reasonable predictions of the effects of these shifts on various kinetic processes can be made from fairly elementary considerations using simple dynamical models. 

Shift reagents have been employed to study the kinetics of catalytic deuteria-tion of 4-t-butylcyclohexanone, and secondary (deuterium) isotopic effects in organic substrates. The n.m.r. study of internal rotation of the methyl groups in MOjNCOR (R = H, Me, or Et) has been facilitated using (1 Ln = Eu or Pr, R = C3F7, R2 = BuV ... 

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