Mechanism and Thermodynamics of Reductive Cleavage of Carbon-Halogen Bonds in the Polybrominated Aliphatic...

Quantum-mechanical computations revealed that, despite the presence of electron-withdrawing and/or π-acceptor substituents, the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMO) of the polybromosubstituted aliphatic molecules R-Br (R-Br = C3Br2F6, CBr3NO2, CBr3CN, CBr3CONH2, CBr3CO2H, CHBr3, CFBr3, CBr4, CBr3COCBr3) are delocalized mostly over their bromine-containing fragments. The singly occupied molecular orbitals in the corresponding vertically excited anion radicals (R-Br(•-))* are characterized by essentially the same shapes and show nodes in the middle of the C-Br bonds. An injection of an electron into the antibonding LUMO results in the barrierless dissociation of the anion-radical species and the concerted reductive cleavages of C-Br bonds leading to the formation of the loosely bonded {R(•)···Br(-)} associates. The interaction energies between the fragments of these ion-radical pairs vary from ∼10 to 20 kcal mol(-1) in the gas phase and from 1 to 3 kcal mol(-1) in acetonitrile. In accord with the concerted mechanism of reductive cleavage, all R-Br molecules showed completely irreversible reduction waves in the voltammograms in the whole range of the scan rates employed (from 0.05 to 5 V s(-1)). Also, the transfer coefficients α, established from the width of these waves and dependence of reduction peak potentials Ep on the scan rates, were significantly lower than 0.5. The standard reduction potentials of the R-Br electrophiles, E(o)R-Br/R·+X(-), and the corresponding R(•) radicals, E(o)R(•)/R(-), were calculated in acetonitrile using the appropriate thermodynamic cycles. In agreement with these calculations, which indicated that the R(•) radicals resulting from the reductive cleavage of the R-Br molecules are stronger oxidants than their parents, the reduction peaks' currents in cyclic voltammograms were consistent with the two-electron transfer processes.