The photochemistry of acrylonitrile vapour at 213.9 nm

Abstract

The photolysis of acrylonitrile vapour in the π* ← n transition was carried out at 213.9 nm. Evidence is presented for two molecular elimination channels, one to yield acetylene and hydrogen cyanide (Ф = 0.50), the other to yield cyanoacetylene and hydrogen (Ф = 0.31). Experiments on acrylonitrile-1-d gave evidence that molecular elimination proceeds by α–β elimination following rapid intramolecular scrambling of deuterium by H/D migration in the excited state.