Mechanical Activation of Forbidden Photoreactivity in Oxa-di-π-methane Rearrangement

In this work, we demonstrate that the forbidden oxirane-type photoproduct (the cyclopropyl ketone photoproduct is the allowed one) of the oxa-di-π-methane photorearrangement can be obtained by mechanochemical control of the photoreactions. This control is achieved by the application of simple force pairs rationally chosen. By analyzing in detail the effect of the applied forces on this photoreaction, it comes to light that the mechanical action affects the diverse properties of the oxa-di-π-methane rearrangement, modifying all the steps of the reaction: (i) the initial ground-state conformers' distribution becomes affected; (ii) the new conformational population makes the triplet excitation process to be changed, responding to the magnitude of the applied force; (iii) the stability of the different intermediates along the triplet pathway also becomes affected, changing the dynamical behavior of the system and the reaction kinetics; and (iv) the intersystem crossing also becomes strongly affected, making the forbidden oxirane-type photoproduct to decay more efficiently to the ground state. All these changes provide a complex scenario where a detailed study of the effect of applied forces is necessary in order to predict its overall effect on the photoreactivity.