Photoinduced electron transfer processes in homogeneous and microheterogeneous solutions

Chemical electron transfer-induced fragmentation of a variety of electron donors was shown to be a quite general process. In previous studies, attention was focused on alpha-Beta aminoalcohols and 1,2-ditertiary amines. In the present year, studies were extended to include pinacols, an richer variety of diamines and amino-ketones. The mechanisms, intermediates involved in these fragmentation reactions, and medium effects were also studied. Studies of pinacols and a variety of diamines show that photooxidative cleavage of 1,2-diheteroatom-containing molecules is a very general process which can occur for several different types of molecules. In order to demonstrate clearly that cation radicals of the heteroatom containing donor can be intermediates in these reactions, the reaction was studied of several different donors with the acceptors, dicyanoanthracene (DCA) and tetracyanoanthracene (TCA) using biphenyl (BP) as a cosensitizer. The second major focus of the work was to look at donors which, undergo reversible redox reactions to give relatively high energy products which are capable of undergoing clean thermal reverse redox reactions but which survive long enough to be potentially useful for other purposes. The reaction explored extensively is the oxidation of tertiary amines to enamines by quinone type molecules such as beta-lapachone. These studies are continued and other reactions are examined which may be more promising in terms of finding a photochemical-thermal redox cycle which can be carried out with little loss of material through competing side reactions.