Nanosecond laser flash photolysis has been used to
study the primary processes in the photochromic reaction
of five O-acylic derivatives of
1-hydroxy-2-methoxyanthraquinone with methyl (I), tolyl (II), phenyl
(III),
ethoxyl (IV), and diethylamino (V) groups in the migrating acyl.
The triplet−triplet absorption spectra of
the reactive triplet states of quinones IV and V were detected, and the
rate constants of the primary
photochemical step were measured. The temperature dependence of
the rate constants of acyl migration in
the triplet states of quinones IV and V was studied, and the Arrhenius
parameters were determined. The rate
constants of thermal acyl migration and their Arrhenius parameters were
measured for compounds I−V. It
was found that migrant nature significantly influences the activation
energy of both thermal and photochemical
reactions of acyl migration. The activation energy of thermal
migration increases from 37.9 ± 0.2 kJ/mol
for compound I up to 66.5 ± 0.7 kJ/mol for compound V. The
photochemical process is characterized by
considerably lower values of the activation energy (15.9 ± 0.8 and
26.0 ± 1.7 kJ/mol for compounds IV and
V, respectively). It was confirmed in the present work that
photochemical migration of acyl groups is an
adiabatic process occurring on the triplet potential energy
surface.