Time-resolved absorption spectroscopy kinetic studies

Hydrogen Abstraction Photoexcited ketone intermolecular hydrogen atom abstraction reactions are an interesting area of research becanse of their importance in organic chemistry and dne to the complex reaction mechanisms that may be possible for these kinds of reactions. Time resolved absorption spectroscopy has typically been nsed to follow the kinetics of these reactions but these experiments do not reveal mnch abont the strnctnre of the reactive intermediates. " Time resolved resonance Raman spectroscopy can be used to examine the structure and properties of the reactive intermediates associated with these reactions. Here, we will briefly describe TR experiments reported by Balakrishnan and Umapathy to study hydrogen atom abstraction reactions in the fluoranil/isopropanol system as an example. 

In principle, absorption spectroscopy techniques can be used to characterize radicals. The key issues are the sensitivity of the method, the concentrations of radicals that are produced, and the molar absorptivities of the radicals. High-energy electron beams in pulse radiolysis and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) light from lasers can produce relatively high radical concentrations in the 1-10 x 10 M range, and UV-vis spectroscopy is possible with sensitive photomultipliers. A compilation of absorption spectra for radicals contains many examples. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy can be used for select cases, such as carbonyl-containing radicals, but it is less useful than UV-vis spectroscopy. Time-resolved absorption spectroscopy is used for direct kinetic smdies. Dynamic ESR spectroscopy also can be employed for kinetic studies, and this was the most important kinetic method available for reactions... 

In principle, the application of time-resolved techniques permits identification of intermediates by monitoring their progress to the stable products of reaction. In 1973, Lehman and Berry [25] reported the first application of time-resolved photochemical methods to the study of aryl azides. Using conventional flash photolysis, they irradiated 2-azidobiphenyl in cyclohexane solution. Time-resolved absorption spectroscopy revealed an intermediate assigned as the triplet nitrene primarily on the basis of the similarity of its spectrum to that measured by Reiser [18] in low-temperature experiments. Lehman [25] monitored the rate of carbazole formation and found it to occur by a kinetically first-order process with a lifetime of 460 /is at room temperature. These findings led them to conclude that photolysis of 2-azidobiphenyl at room temperature leads rapidly to the triplet nitrene, and that this species is the precursor to carbazole [25], However, this point of view clearly is at odds with Swenton s triplet sensitization experiments [23],... 

Despite the considerable amount of information that has been garnered from more traditional methods of study it is clearly desirable to be able to generate, spectroscopically characterize and follow the reaction kinetics of coordinatively unsaturated species in real time. Since desired timescales for reaction will typically be in the microsecond to sub-microsecond range, a system with a rapid time response will be required. Transient absorption systems employing a visible or UV probe which meet this criterion have been developed and have provided valuable information for metal carbonyl systems [14,15,27]. However, since metal carbonyls are extremely photolabile and their UV-visible absorption spectra are not very structure sensitive, the preferred choice for a spectroscopic probe is time resolved infrared spectroscopy. Unfortunately, infrared detectors are enormously less sensitive and significantly slower... 

The Photoactive Yellow Protein (PYP) is the blue-light photoreceptor that presumably mediates negative phototaxis of the purple bacterium Halorhodospira halophila [1]. Its chromophore is the deprotonated trans-p-coumaric acid covalently linked, via a thioester bond, to the unique cystein residue of the protein. Like for rhodopsins, the trans to cis isomerization of the chromophore was shown to be the first overall step of the PYP photocycle, but the reaction path that leads to the formation of the cis isomer is not clear yet (for review see [2]). From time-resolved spectroscopy measurements on native PYP in solution, it came out that the excited-state deactivation involves a series of fast events on the subpicosecond and picosecond timescales correlated to the chromophore reconfiguration [3-7]. On the other hand, chromophore H-bonding to the nearest amino acids was shown to play a key role in the trans excited state decay kinetics [3,8]. In an attempt to evaluate further the role of the mesoscopic environment in the photophysics of PYP, we made a comparative study of the native and denatured PYP. The excited-state relaxation path and kinetics were monitored by subpicosecond time-resolved absorption and gain spectroscopy. 

In the case of NOS 12, different kinetics were observed at 436 nm. In cyclohexane, there was a rapid rise, with a lifetime of 6.6 psec followed by a decay with a 100-psec lifetime. In 1-butanol, there was a rapid rise (lifetime=4.3 psec), a decay (43-psec lifetime), and a second longer decay within a 1.4-nsec lifetime. These findings were confirmed by picosecond time-resolved resonance Raman spectroscopy. In these Raman studies in cyclohexane, a single rate constant was observed, whereas in 1-butanol, three spectral components grew with different time constants. The data were said to be consistent with the photo-formation of two or three isomers trans about the central methine bond however, other transient species could be responsible for the observed kinetics because the absorption envelope obviously shifts and this would affect the resonance Raman bands. 

The mechanism of dissolution of the Cu UPD layer on Au(lll) has been studied by Ataka etal. [409]. The monolayer comprised Cu in 2/3 and sulfate in 1/3 proportions. It has been found by applying time-resolved surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy and chronoam-perometry that dissolution proceeds in two steps. In the first step, 1/3 Cu monolayer and all sulfate anions are removed via the Langmuir-type kinetics. In the second step, the rest of Cu is desorbed via nucleation and growth kinetics. 

Chemiluminescence has been used to measure the relative yields of excited ketones formed from self reaction of alkoxyl and alkylperoxyl radical pairs . In the photochemistry of aryl azides a dehydroazepine is detected by time resolved infra red spectroscopy and flash photolysis at room temperature . Singlet and triplet nitrenes and dehydroazepenes have also been detected in the photochemistry of 3- and 4-nitrophenyl azides . Picosecond and nanosecond laser photolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate in aqueous media produces a triplet state of the -nitrobenzylanion and CO2 after cleavage of the rnr triplet. Absorption, emission, and reaction kinetics of dimethylsilylene produced by flash photolyses of dodecamethylcycloherasilane is another interesting study 2,... 

Mass spectra of short-lived, unstable episelenides were obtained by taking advantage of a mass spectrometric technique developed for the time-resolved detection of transient intermediates in flash-photolyzed systems <66JA4277>. Detection does not depend on the electronic absorption characteristics of the transient, and, in combination with kinetic absorption spectroscopy, the technique assumes great flexibility. The apparatus consists, essentially, of a photolysis cell attached to a small leak into the ion source of an Atlas CH4 mass spectrometer. Selected mass peaks can be studied with a response time of a few milliseconds, and thereafter at times limited by bleeding of the photolyzed mixture into the ion chamber. Typical photolytic flash energies were 480 calories, passed into a reaction volume of 5 ml. 

The kinetics of the reaction of NO with methyl radicals in the presence of acetone as the bath-gas was studied by Jodkowski et al,212 using time-resolved infrared absorption spectroscopy. The kinetics of CH3 + NO was studied under pseudo-first-order conditions, i.e. with [NO] [CH3], while the contribution from the self-reaction of methyl radicals... 

The rate constants of the above reactions strongly depend on the bath-gas pressure. Time-resolved IR absorption spectroscopy was used by Pagsberg et al.254 to study the formation kinetics of FN02, whereas, for comparison, the decay of N02 was monitored by UV spectroscopy at 298 K and 341 K. 

Transient terahertz spectroscopy Time-resolved terahertz (THz) spectroscopy (TRTS) has been used to measure the transient photoconductivity of injected electrons in dye-sensitised titanium oxide with subpicosecond time resolution (Beard et al, 2002 Turner et al, 2002). Terahertz probes cover the far-infrared (10-600 cm or 0.3-20 THz) region of the spectrum and measure frequency-dependent photoconductivity. The sample is excited by an ultrafast optical pulse to initiate electron injection and subsequently probed with a THz pulse. In many THz detection schemes, the time-dependent electric field 6 f) of the THz probe pulse is measured by free-space electro-optic sampling (Beard et al, 2002). Both the amplitude and the phase of the electric field can be determined, from which the complex conductivity of the injected electrons can be obtained. Fitting the complex conductivity allows the determination of carrier concentration and mobility. The time evolution of these quantities can be determined by varying the delay time between the optical pump and THz probe pulses. The advantage of this technique is that it provides detailed information on the dynamics of the injected electrons in the semiconductor and complements the time-resolved fluorescence and transient absorption techniques, which often focus on the dynamics of the adsorbates. A similar technique, time-resolved microwave conductivity, has been used to study injection kinetics in dye-sensitised nanocrystalline thin films (Fessenden and Kamat, 1995). However, its time resolution is limited to longer than 1 ns. 

Time resolved electronic absorption and emission spectroscopy has been extensively used for solution phase kinetic studies of fast chemical processes initiated by ionizing radiation. A wealth of information on rate parameters and reaction mechanisms on a variety of chemical reactions has been obtained by this technique. As valuable as these techniques are, they have limitations. In particular, the electronic spectra in solution are often broad and featureless and offer little structural information. As a consequence, the identification of a reaction intermediate is based on chemical intuition and not on its spectral characteristics. Moreover, when more than one transient is present in the system with overlapping electronic absorption, the kinetic monitoring of the individual concentration becomes difficult. Vibra-... 

Transient absorption spectroscopy has been a conventional technique for studying the configurational (conformational) changes that are reflected in the Tn <— T, optical transition. Picosecond to microsecond time-resolved, pump and probe measurement has been widely used to examine the triplet-state isomerizations as far as each ris-T, and the all-trans-Tj species are selectively observed. Even when their wavelengths are very similar to one another, the SVD and global-fitting analysis can successfully identify a set of triplet species appearing in different time-scales, when a correct kinetic model is built. 

The few examples discussed here, added to the large number anyone can find in the literature, are definite proof of the usefulness X-ray spectroscopy has today in the field of catalyst characterization. We have restricted our illustrations to the EXAFS domain but it becomes clearer every day that the edge region is also of great interest XANES (X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure) provides information on the electronic states taken by the active species during the reaction. As we very briefly reported, the number of empty d states can be followed accurately and relations with the different chemical pathways of the reaction may be established (see for example The whole will undoubtedly contribute to the development of time-resolved studies done under real reaction conditions, so that kinetic measurements will be one of the major uses of the technique in the near future. 

Cluster properties, mostly those that control electron transfer processes such as the redox potential in solution, are markedly dependent on their nuclearity. Therefore, clusters of the same metal may behave as electron donor or as electron acceptor, depending on their size. Pulse radiolysis associated with time-resolved optical absorption spectroscopy is used to generate isolated metal atoms and to observe transitorily the subsequent clusters of progressive nuclearity yielded by coalescence. Applied to silver clusters, the kinetic study of the competition of coalescence with reactions in the presence of added reactants of variable redox potential allows us to describe the autocatalytic processes of growth or corrosion of the clusters by electron transfer. The results provide the size dependence of the redox potential of some metal clusters. The influence of the environment (surfactant, ligand, or support) and the role of electron relay of metal clusters in electron transfer catalysis are discussed. 

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