Rate constant for chlorine abstraction from CCl4 by the 5-hexenyl radical

Abstract

Cyclization of the 5-hexenyl free radical to the cyclopentylmethyl free radical was used to clock chlorine atom abstraction by 5-hexenyl from carbon tetrachloride in solution. The source of 5-hexenyl radicals was 5-hexenyl[1-hydroxy-1-methyl-ethyl]diazene ((CH3)2C(OH)N=N(CH2)4CH=CH2), which decomposes thermally in CCl4 by a radical chain mechanism to afford chloroform, acetone, nitrogen, 6-chloro-1-hexene, cyclopentylchloromethane, 1-hexene, and methylcyclopentane as primary products. 6-Chloro-1-hexene is converted, in part, to a secondary product, 1,1,1,3,7-pentachloroheptane, by radical chain addition of CC14 to the double bond. The rate constant for chlorine atom abstraction, kCl, was calculated from the product composition and the known rate constant for cyclization of the 5-hexenyl radical. For the temperature range 274–353 K, kCl is given by log (kCl/M−1 s−1) = (8.4 ± 0.3) − (6.2 ± 0.4)/θ where θ = 2.3 RT kcal mol−1, which leads to [Formula: see text]. This value is significantly smaller than recently reported estimates for other primary alkyl radicals.