Facile Rearrangement of 3-Oxoalkyl Radicals is Evident in Low-Temperature Gas-Phase Oxidation of Ketones

Stereoisomer-dependent unimolecular kinetics of 2,4-dimethyloxetane peroxy radicals

2,4,dimethyloxetane is an important cyclic ether intermediate that is produced from hydroperoxyalkyl (QOOH) radicals in low-temperature combustion of n-pentane. However, reaction mechanisms and rates of consumption pathways remain unclear. In...

Radical-mediated C-C cleavage of unstrained cycloketones and DFT study for unusual regioselectivity

The C-C σ-bond activation of unstrained cycloketones represents an ingenious and advanced technique in synthetic chemistry, but it remains a challenging area which has been largely underexplored. Herein we report an efficient strategy for the direct C-C cleavage of cyclohexanones and cyclopentanones. The cyclic C-C σ-bond is readily cleaved under mild conditions with the aid of an in situ formed side-chain aryl radical. Density functional theory calculations are carried out to shed light on the unusual regioselectivity of C-C bond cleavage. The reaction affords a variety of structurally diverse 3-coumaranones and indanones that widely exist in natural products and bioactive molecules, illustrating the synthetic value of this method.

Low temperature (550-700 K) oxidation pathways of cyclic ketones: dominance of HO2-elimination channels yielding conjugated cyclic coproducts

The low-temperature oxidation of three cyclic ketones, cyclopentanone (CPO; C5H8=O), cyclohexanone (CHO; C6H10=O), and 2-methyl-cyclopentanone (2-Me-CPO; CH3-C5H7=O), is studied between 550 and 700 K and at 4 or 8 Torr total pressure. Initial fuel radicals R are formed via fast H-abstraction from the ketones by laser-photolytically generated chlorine atoms. Intermediates and products from the subsequent reactions of these radicals in the presence of excess O2 are probed with time and isomeric resolution using multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometry with tunable synchrotron ionizing radiation. For CPO and CHO the dominant product channel in the R + O2 reactions is chain-terminating HO2-elimination yielding the conjugated cyclic coproducts 2-cyclopentenone and 2-cyclohexenone, respectively. Results on oxidation of 2-Me-CPO also show a dominant contribution from HO2-elimination. The photoionization spectrum of the co-product suggests formation of 2-methyl-2-cyclopentenone and/or 2-cyclohexenone, resulting from a rapid Dowd-Beckwith rearrangement, preceding addition to O2, of the initial (2-oxocyclopentyl)methyl radical to 3-oxocyclohexyl. Cyclic ethers, markers for hydroperoxyalkyl radicals (QOOH), key intermediates in chain-propagating and chain-branching low-temperature combustion pathways, are only minor products. The interpretation of the experimental results is supported by stationary point calculations on the potential energy surfaces of the associated R + O2 reactions at the CBS-QB3 level. The calculations indicate that HO2-elimination channels are energetically favored and product formation via QOOH is disfavored. The prominence of chain-terminating pathways linked with HO2 formation in low-temperature oxidation of cyclic ketones suggests little low-temperature reactivity of these species as fuels in internal combustion engines.

Computational Kinetic Study for the Unimolecular Decomposition Pathways of Cyclohexanone

There has been evidence lately that several endophytic fungi can convert lignocellulosic biomass into ketones among other oxygenated compounds. Such compounds could prove useful as biofuels for internal combustion engines. Therefore, their combustion properties are of high interest. Cyclohexanone was identified as an interesting second-generation biofuel ( Boot , M. ; et al. Cyclic Oxygenates: A New Class of Second-Generation Biofuels for Diesel Engines? Energy Fuels 2009 , 23 , 1808 - 1817 ; Klein-Douwel , R. J. H. ; et al. Soot and Chemiluminescence in Diesel Combustion of Bio-Derived, Oxygenated and Reference Fuels . Proc. Combust. Inst. 2009 , 32 , 2817 - 2825 ). However, until recently ( Serinyel , Z. ; et al. Kinetics of Oxidation of Cyclohexanone in a Jet- Stirred Reactor: Experimental and Modeling . Proc. Combust. Inst. 2014 ; DOI: 10.1016/j.proci.2014.06.150 ), no previous studies on the kinetics of oxidation of that fuel could be found in the literature. In this work, we present the first theoretical kinetic study of the unimolecular decomposition pathways of cyclohexanone, a cyclic ketone that could demonstrate important fuel potential. Using the quantum composite G3B3 method, we identified six different decomposition pathways for cyclohexanone and computed the corresponding rate constants. The rate constants were calculated using the G3B3 method coupled with Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus theory in the temperature range of 800-2000 K. Our calculations show that the kinetically more favorable channel for thermal decomposition is pathway 2 that produces 1,3-butadien-2-ol, which in turn can isomerize easily to methyl vinyl ketone through a small barrier. The results presented here can be used in a future kinetic combustion mechanism.