Aryldiazonium salts may be reduced to the corresponding hydrocarbons by complex hydrides in methanol at 0 OC [l]. The hydrogen introduced can be transferred from various sources as anion, radical, or proton. To discriminate between these possibilities, we treated bimesityl-3,3'-bis(diazonium) bis(tetrafluorob0rate) ( I ) in methanol with sodium tetrahydridoborate; in each case the reducing agent or the solvent was deuterated in a different manner (98-99% D). The deuterium content of the resulting bimesityl, which could be isolated in approximately 22% yield by chromatography, was determined by mass spectrometry (* 1 %). 6 3 36 42 4 33 57 43 1 4.5 7 1 6 95 % D 1 2 ( 7 4 1 7 5 ( 6 4 1 3 1 2 1As is evident from Table 1, it is not the hydrido hydrogen that appears in the product but the acidic proton of the methanol to the extent of about 85 %.Since the diazonium tetrafluoroborate ( I ) is stable for two hours in methanol at room temperature, the tetrahydridoborate must first reduce the diazonium salt to the aryldiimine. The latter compound then rapidly exchanges the N-H proton with the solvent and decomposes mainly via the diimine anion to give nitrogen and an aryl anion, which abstracts a proton or deuteron from the solvent, thus yielding the hydrocarbon [2,31.
ZtH@Ar-NEN"i-NaBH4Ar-N=NQIn acetonitrile, the bimolecular decomposition of phenyldiimine was formulated as a free-radical process and an isotope effect KH/KD = 4-5 was observed [41, The difference between the third and fourth columns of Table 1 shows that with hydride in methanol only about 1 5 % of aryl radicals are formed that abstract hydrogen from the C-H bond. In the reaction with 4 mol. equiv. of non-deuterated sodium methoxide the percentage of radicals increases markedly (columns 5 and 6).We attribute incomplete deuteration (75 and 21 %) in [Ddmethanol with NaBD4 and with sodium methoxide, respectively, to the isotope effect [3,41 and to water present in compound ( I ) . If the salt is prepared in D20 up to 85 % deuteraation is achieved.About 10 % of 3,3'-difluorobimesityl containing no deuterium and 8 % of 3-fluorobimesityl (also deuterated) were obtained as by-products. Decomposition of (1) in boiling methanol affords 75 % of 3,3'-difluorobimesityl and 13 % of 3-flUOr0-3'methoxybimesityl (oil), but no bimesityl.
Experimental:3,3'-Diaminobimesityl(270 mg) are diazotized in 20 % hydrochloric acid (1.1 g) with NaNO2 (138 mg) in water (1 ml) a t 0 'C; the filtered solution is treated with NaBF4 (330 mg) in water (0.8 ml) and the resulting precipitate is filtered off after 30 min. The salt (350 mg), which is washed with 5 % NaBF4 solution (0.2 ml), cold methanol (0.2 ml), and ether (1 ml) successively and dried over PzO5 for 5 h under vacuum, is suspended in methanol (2 ml) and treated at 0 "C, with stirring, with NaBH4 (80mg); heat is evolved during the reaction. After 2 h the reaction mixture is extracted with n-hexane and the residue obtained after evaporation of the solvent is separated by layer chromatography on silica gel (Merck PF 254) with ligh...