Kinetic study of the phthalimide N-oxyl radical in acetic acid. Hydrogen abstraction from substituted toluenes, benzaldehydes, and benzyl alcohols.

The phthalimide N-oxyl (PINO) radical was generated by the oxidation of N-hydroxyphthalimide (NHPI) with Pb(OAc)4 in acetic acid. The molar absorptivity of PINO* is 1.36 x 10(3) L mol(-1) cm(-1) at lambda(max) 382 nm. The PINO radical decomposes slowly with a second-order rate constant of 0.6 +/- 0.1 L mol(-1) s(-1) at 25 degrees C. The reactions of PINO(*) with substituted toluenes, benzaldehydes, and benzyl alcohols were investigated under an argon atmosphere. The second-order rate constants were correlated by means of a Hammett analysis. The reactions with toluenes and benzyl alcohols have better correlations with sigma+ (rho = -1.3 and -0.41), and the reaction with benzaldehydes correlates better with sigma (rho = -0.91). The kinetic isotope effect was also studied and significantly large values of k(H)/k(D) were obtained: 25.0 (p-xylene), 27.1 (toluene), 27.5 (benzaldehyde), and 16.9 (benzyl alcohol) at 25 degrees C. From the Arrhenius plot for the reactions with p-xylene and p-xylene-d(10), the difference of the activation energies, E(a)(D) - E(a)(H), was 12.6 +/- 0.8 kJ mol(-1) and the ratio of preexponential factors, A(H)/A(D), was 0.17 +/- 0.05. These findings indicate that quantum mechanical tunneling plays an important role in these reactions.