Capturing transient structures in the elimination reaction of haloalkane in solution by transient X-ray diffraction

Jae Hyuk Lee; Tae Kyu Kim; Joonghan Kim; Qingyu Kong; Marco Cammarata; Maciej Lorenc; Michael Wulff; Hyotcherl Ihee

doi:10.1021/ja710267u

Capturing transient structures in the elimination reaction of haloalkane in solution by transient X-ray diffraction

J Am Chem Soc. 2008 May 7;130(18):5834-5. doi: 10.1021/ja710267u. Epub 2008 Apr 15.

Authors

Jae Hyuk Lee¹, Tae Kyu Kim, Joonghan Kim, Qingyu Kong, Marco Cammarata, Maciej Lorenc, Michael Wulff, Hyotcherl Ihee

Affiliation

¹ Center for Time-Resolved Diffraction, Department of Chemistry, KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, Korea.

PMID: 18410097
DOI: 10.1021/ja710267u

Abstract

This Communication reports simultaneous tracking of structural and kinetic information for the photoinduced elimination reaction of 1,2-diiodotetrafluoroethane in solution by transient X-ray diffraction. The transient structure of .CF2CF2I is determined to be a classical mixture whereas .CH2CH2I is bridged. Compared with the gas phase reaction, the secondary dissociation of .CF2CF2I into C2F4 and I is slowed down by a factor of 6 in solution. Transient X-ray diffraction offers a complementary method for capturing transient structures in solution which might be invisible or "optically silent" in time-resolved optical spectroscopy.