Abstract
ALTHOUGH earlier work had suggested that the species methylene, CH2, could participate in “insertion” reactions into C—H and C—Cl bonds1,2, it has recently been shown that in the gas phase reaction of methylene with methyl chloride the course of reaction is best described by a radical abstraction–recombination mechanism3,4. It was shown that both ethane and dichloroethane appeared at rates at least as great as the rate at which ethyl chloride (the true “insertion” product) was formed in the reaction. The electronic state of the methylene may, however, determine the reaction path, and there is some evidence that it is excited singlet methylene which undergoes the insertion reaction5,6. Methylene is most conveniently prepared by the photolysis of ketene7 or diazomethane8, and the proportion of triplet (ground state) and singlet methylene formed depends on the precursor and the wave-length of the radiation used for photolysis9,10, more singlet being formed at shorter wavelengths. We wished to investigate the effect of change of excess energy in methylene on the course of reaction, and we present here preliminary results.
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JOHNSTONE, R., WAYNE, R. Effect of Excess Energy on the Reactivity of Methylene. Nature 211, 1396–1397 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2111396a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2111396a0
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