Experimental Evidence for Heavy-Atom Tunneling in the Ring-Opening of Cyclopropylcarbinyl Radical from Intramolecular 12C/13C Kinetic Isotope Effects Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The intramolecular (13)C kinetic isotope effects for the ring-opening of cyclopropylcarbinyl radical were determined over a broad temperature range. The observed isotope effects are unprecedentedly large, ranging from 1.062 at 80 degrees C to 1.163 at -100 degrees C. Semiclassical calculations employing canonical variational transition-state theory drastically underpredict the observed isotope effects, but the predicted isotope effects including tunneling by a small-curvature tunneling model match well with experiment. These results and a curvature in the Arrhenius plot of the isotope effects support the recently predicted importance of heavy-atom tunneling in cyclopropylcarbinyl ring-opening.

altmetric score

  • 5.898

author list (cited authors)

  • Gonzalez-James, O. M., Zhang, X., Datta, A., Hrovat, D. A., Borden, W. T., & Singleton, D. A.

citation count

  • 79

complete list of authors

  • Gonzalez-James, Ollie M||Zhang, Xue||Datta, Ayan||Hrovat, David A||Borden, Weston Thatcher||Singleton, Daniel A

publication date

  • January 2010