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Updated: May 27, 2026

Isolating Free Carbenes, their Mixed Dimers and Organic Radicals
Published on: April 19, 2019
Oxygenation of the phenylhalocarbenes. Are they spin-allowed or spin-forbidden reactions?
Al Mokhtar Lamsabhi1, Inés Corral, Patricia Pérez
1Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Química Módulo 13, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. mokhtar.lamsabhi@uam.es
Abstract:
Oxygenation mechanisms of phenylhalocarbenes in vacuum are investigated through the use of density functional theory and CASSCF-PT2 approaches. Reactions with both substituted and unsubstituted phenylhalocarbenes are strongly exothermic. The reactions with nitrosubstituted halocarbenes are predicted to be spin allowed due to the practical degeneracy of the singlet and triplet carbene states. Conversely, for the unsubstituted compounds, the equilibrium between the triplet carbene and (3)O(2) requires a previous singlet-triplet state crossing. The large spin-orbit coupling at this crossing suggests a rather efficient tunneling rate. This would help to explain why the rate constant in solution in these cases is only one order of magnitude smaller than those involving a spin-allowed process. Moreover, the action of the solvent as a third body appears to play a fundamental role in prompting relatively smooth rates.
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