Rate constants for 1,5- and 1,6-hydrogen atom transfer reactions of mono-, di-, and tri-aryl-substituted donors, models for hydrogen atom transfers in polyunsaturated fatty acid radicals.

Rate constants for 1,5- and 1,6-hydrogen atom transfer reactions in models of polyunsaturated fatty acid radicals were measured via laser flash photolysis methods. Photolyses of PTOC (pyridine-2-thioneoxycarbonyl) ester derivatives of carboxylic acids gave primary alkyl radicals that reacted by 1,5-hydrogen transfer from mono-, di-, and tri-aryl-substituted positions or 1,6-hydrogen transfer from di- and tri-aryl-substituted positions to give UV-detectable products. Rate constants for reactions in acetonitrile at room temperature ranged from 1 x 10(4) to 4 x 10(6) s(-1). The activation energies for a matched pair of 1,5- and 1,6-hydrogen atom transfers giving tri-aryl-substituted radicals were approximately equal, as were the primary kinetic isotope effects, but the 1,5-hydrogen atom transfer reaction was 1 order of magnitude faster at room temperature than the 1,6-hydrogen atom transfer reaction due to a less favorable entropy of activation for the 1,6-transfer reaction. Solvent effects on the rate constants for the 1,5-hydrogen atom transfer reaction of the 2-[2-(diphenylmethyl)phenyl]ethyl radical at ambient temperature were as large as a factor of 2 with the reaction increasing in rate in lower polarity solvents. Hybrid density functional theory computations for the 1,5- and 1,6-hydrogen atom transfers of the tri-aryl-substituted donors were in qualitative agreement with the experimental results.