Isothermal and Isoconversional Modeling of Solid-State Nitroso Polymerization.

The solid-state formation of azodioxide polymers from aromatic dinitroso compounds with different spacer groups was used as a model reaction for a comprehensive analysis that included bulk-based, mechanistic, and isoconversional kinetic methods. Dinitroso species were prepared in situ from azodioxides by UV cleavage under cryogenic conditions, after which their thermally induced conversion to azodioxides was followed by Fourier transform IR spectroscopy. The obtained data were used to calculate activation parameters and determine the influence of the spacer on the kinetics. Isoconversional models suggest a distribution of activation energies, pointing to an important (topochemical) effect of the local environment on the reactivity. In general, bulk-based and isoconversional kinetic models gave poorer fits but produced mutually consistent rate parameters. Similar energies and entropies of activation were obtained with all three approaches, suggesting that they all describe the same underlying physical phenomena; that is, the polymerization by bond-making is the dominant process.

Ultrafast Adiabatic Photodehydration of 2-Hydroxymethylphenol and the Formation of Quinone Methide.

The photochemical reactivity of 2-hydroxymethylphenol (1) was investigated experimentally by photochemistry under cryogenic conditions, by detecting reactive intermediates by IR spectroscopy, and by using nanosecond and femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopic methods in solution at room temperature. In addition, theoretical studies were performed to facilitate the interpretation of the experimental results and also to simulate the reaction pathway to obtain a better understanding of the reaction mechanism. The main finding of this work is that photodehydration of 1 takes place in an ultrafast adiabatic photochemical reaction without any clear intermediate, delivering quinone methide (QM) in the excited state. Upon photoexcitation to a higher vibrational level of the singlet excited state, 1 undergoes vibrational relaxation leading to two photochemical pathways, one by which synchronous elimination of H2 O gives QM 2 in its S1 state and the other by which homolytic cleavage of the phenolic O-H bond produces a phenoxyl radical (S0 ). Both are ultrafast processes that occur within a picosecond. The excited state of QM 2 (S1 ) probably deactivates to S0 through a conical intersection to give QM 2 (S0 ), which subsequently delivers benzoxete 4. Elucidation of the reaction mechanisms for the photodehydration of phenols by which QMs are formed is important to tune the reactivity of QMs with DNA and proteins for the potential application of QMs in medicine as therapeutic agents.

Quantum Chemical Calculations of Monomer-Dimer Equilibria of Aromatic C-Nitroso Compounds.

Monomer-dimer equilibria of nitrosobenzene and 2-nitrosopyridine in gas phase and solution were studied by range of quantum chemical methods in an attempt to find the level of theory suitable for modeling dimerization reactions of aromatic C-nitroso compounds in general. The best agreement with the experimental standard reaction Gibbs energies was obtained with a combination of double-hybrid density functionals B2PLYP-D3, PBE0DH, and DSD-PBEB86, and basis sets of triple-ζ quality. Of all other tested functionals, global hybrid PBE0 behaved equally well, and proved to be more than adequate for at least preliminary work. Other tested methods either produced inferior results (MP2, MP4(SDQ), CCSD, G4(MP2), CBS-QBS, CBS-APNO), or were too demanding for practical use (CCSD(T)). Analysis of computationally obtained thermodynamic data reveal intricate details of these reactions. Both E- and Z-dimers have several different conformers, which all have different solvation energies. While in the gas phase the nitrosobenzene E-dimer is more stable that its Z-form, in chloroform, the Z-form is more stable. Gas-phase dimerization entropies are large and negative, so these reactions are strongly temperature dependent. In some cases, like with 2-nitrosopyridines, entropy and enthalpy terms essentially cancel each other out, allowing structural and media effects to significantly influence dimerization equilibria.

Reaction of trimethylsilylacetylenes with antimony pentafluoride under matrix isolation conditions: experimental and computational study.

Reaction of trimethylsilylacetylenes Me(3)SiC≡CR with SbF(5) in the solid state was investigated using matrix isolation infrared spectroscopy and quantum-mechanical calculations. Two reaction pathways were detected. Replacement of the trimethylsilyl group with SbF(4) produces neutral antimony acetylides F(4)SbC≡CR. Acetylenic bond protonation produces silyl cation 6-R, fully bridged for R = H and SiMe(3). High total charges on the bridging SiMe(3) group and low Me(3)Si-C bond orders to acetylenic moiety, both calculated at the MP4(SDQ)/6-311G(d,p) level of theory, indicate high silyl cation character of these species.

Hydrogen phosphate and dihydrogen phosphate salts of 4-aminoazobenzene.

4-Amino-trans-azobenzene {or 4-[(E)-phenyldiazenyl]aniline} can form isomeric salts depending on the site of protonation. Both orange bis{4-[(E)-phenyldiazenyl]anilinium} hydrogen phosphate, 2C12H12N3+.HPO4(2-), and purple 4-[(E)-phenyldiazenyl]anilinium dihydrogen phosphate phosphoric acid solvate, C12H12N3+.H2PO4-.H3PO4, (II), have layered structures formed through O-H...O and N-H...O hydrogen bonds. Additionally, azobenzene fragments in (I) are assembled through C-H...pi interactions and in (II) through pi-pi interactions. Arguments for the colour difference are tentatively proposed.

Solid-state reaction mechanisms in monomer-dimer interconversions of p-bromonitrosobenzene. Single-crystal-to-single-crystal photodissociation and formation of new non-van der Waals close contacts.

Thermal and photochemical reactions and the phase transition mechanisms of solid-state monomer-dimer interconversions of p-bromonitrosobenzene were studied on the basis of kinetics data and single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformations. From the crystal structure and packing of p-bromobenzeneazodioxide and the previously determined structure of the freshly sublimed monomer, we have explained both consecutive steps in thermal dimerization. While the first reaction (formation of the metastable dimer) with first-order kinetics affords diminishing of the (2 2 0) critical crystal plane that intersects atoms of the nitroso groups, the second phase transformation step includes four critical planes, which show sigmoid kinetics. In the new phase growth, these crystal planes developed in two (Cartesian) dimensions as vectors perpendicular to ab and ac planes, which is in agreement with the dimensionality previously determined on the basis of the Avrami-Erofeyev analysis (with m = 2.01). Photochromic dissociation of the azodioxide at 100 K was followed by structure determination of the single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation. A new metastable monomer was discovered, in which, despite bond breaking, the nitrogen atoms of the neighboring monomers remained very close to each other (2.30 A), i.e., 23.3% closer than is the sum of two N-atom van der Waals radii. Such an extraordinary close contact was also observed between N and O atoms. This tight packing can explain why the return to dimerization after the low temperature photodissociation occurs so rapidly at a temperature as low as 170 K.

Nitrosobenzene dimerizations as a model system for studying solid-state reaction mechanisms.

Thermal dimerization of nitroso compounds in the solid state was investigated by using para-substituted nitrosobenzenes as model compounds. A mechanism that includes the interplay of topochemical reaction trajectories and phase transfer was proposed on the basis of FT-IR spectroscopic kinetics, time-resolved powder diffraction, and low-temperature X-ray structure determination. From shapes of the kinetic curves analyzed on the basis of the Avrami model, it was found that phase transfer could be triggered by a dimerization reaction of para-substituted nitrosobenzene to azodioxide, which, in turn, can be caused by different packing factors such as disorder in the starting nitroso monomer crystals. Since the represented model can be extended to a broad series of compounds, we propose it as a general method for investigations of solid-state reaction mechanisms.