Reactivity and Product Analysis of a Pair of Cumyloxyl and tert-Butoxyl Radicals Generated in Photolysis of tert-Butyl Cumyl Peroxide.

Alkoxyl radicals play important roles in various fields of chemistry. Understanding their reactivity is essential to applying their chemistry for industrial and biological purposes. Hydrogen-atom transfer and C-C β-scission reactions have been reported from alkoxyl radicals. The ratios of these two processes were investigated using cumyloxyl (CumO•) and tert-butoxyl radicals (t-BuO•), respectively. However, the products generated from the pair of radicals have not been investigated in detail. In this study, CumO• and t-BuO• were simultaneously generated from the photolysis of tert-butyl cumyl peroxide to understand the chemical behavior of the pair of radicals by analyzing the products and their distribution. Electron paramagnetic resonance and/or transient absorption spectroscopy analyses of radicals, including CumO• and t-BuO•, provide more information about the radicals generated during the photolysis of tert-butyl cumyl peroxide. Furthermore, the photoproducts of (3-(tert-butylperoxy)pentane-3-yl)benzene demonstrated that the ether products were formed in in-cage reactions. The triplet-sensitized reaction induced by acetophenone, which is produced from CumO•, clarified that the spin state did not affect the product distribution.