ISSN:
0025-116X
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Polymer and Materials Science
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Physics
Notes:
Electronically excited styrene - in bulk or in concentrated solution - via intermolecular fluorescence self quenching processes undergoes a series of parallel and consecutive chemical reactions, leading to photooligomers and photopolymers. The oligomeric photoproducts, as shown by gas chromatography analysis, consist of dimers (M2) and trimers (M3) of styrene, whereby the quantity of M2 exceeds M3 by a factor of 20. The dimer fraction is built up of (a) 4 non olefinic cyclic C16-hydrocarbons: cis-1,2-diphenylcyclobutane (c-CB, 45-50 wt.-%), trans-1,2-diphenylcyclobutane (tr-CB, 8-10 wt.-%), 1-phenyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene (1-PhT, 7-9 wt.-%), and 2-phenyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene (2-PhT, 3-5 wt.-%), (b) an open chain unsaturated compound-1-vinyl-2-(2-phenylethyl)benzene (VPEB, 5-7 wt.-%), and (c) 5 highly unsaturated mono-, bi-, and/or tricyclic C16-valence isomers (19-32 wt.-%) which are considered to be the result of the participation of the aromatic benzene system in 1,2-, 1,3- or 1,4-photocycloaddition reactions, respectively. Among the numerous phototrimers, two saturated C24-hydrocarbons were identified: 1-phenyl-4-(1-phenylethyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene (T1) and 2-phenyl-4-(1-phenylethyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene (T2). Under conditions where simultaneous thermal processes could be excluded (-20≤T/°C≤25), the presence of 1-PhT, 2-PhT, T1 and T2 gives strong evidence for the involvement of two 4π + 2π-photointermediates, viz. 1-phenyl-1,2,3,8a-tetrahydronaphthalene (1) and 2-phenyl-1,2,3,8a-tetrahydronaphthalene (1′), which undergo two consecutive reactions: (a) a unimolecular, photo-induced 1,3-sigmatropic rearrangement (1-PhT, 2-PhT) and (b) a bimolecular, photo-induced ene-reaction with styrene as enophilic component (T1, T2). Because of the non-concerted, stepwise nature of this photo-ene-process, the trimers have to be interpreted as the products of a cage reaction between two radical pairs |R1…R2| and |R1…R2′|. Their presence therefore gives strong evidence that the non-concerted ene-reaction is the most probable pathway for the production of the free radicals, which are responsible for the initiation of photopolymerization.
Additional Material:
4 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/macp.1979.021801108
Permalink