Benzylchlorocarbene (1, BCC) was generated
photochemically from benzylchlorodiazirine (2)
in
isooctane, methylcyclohexane (MCH), and tetrachloroethane (TCE) at
temperatures from ∼30 to
−75 °C. At −70 °C in isooctane, the identified products
included Z/E-β-chlorostyrenes 4
(46.6%),
α-chlorostyrene 5 (2.4%), 1,1-dichloro-2-phenylethane
6 (1.9%), a BCC-isooctane insertion product
8 (5.5%), carbene dimers 9 (3.8%), and azine
3 (30%). The significant incursion of
intermolecular
products 3, 8, and 9 implies that
laser flash photolytic (LFP) kinetic data for the decay of
BCC
obtained at low temperature is biased and should not be employed in
Arrhenius analyses.
Accordingly, previously obtained curved Arrhenius correlations for
BCC do not necessarily implicate
quantum mechanical tunneling (QMT) in the 1,2-H shift rearrangement of
BCC to 4. Similarly in
MCH, where BCC affords a solvent insertion product in ∼44−53%
yield, the curved Arrhenius
correlation (Figure ) cannot be readily interpreted. In polar
solvents such as TCE, clean H-shift
reactions of BCC are obtained even at −71 °C; an Arrhenius
correlation of LFP kinetic data is
linear from 3 to −71 °C (Figure ), affording
E
a = 3.2 kcal mol-1 and log
A = 10.0 s-1. Therefore,
QMT does not appear to play a major role in the 1,2-H shift
rearrangement of BCC at ambient or
near ambient temperature in solution.