Radical | Chemistry - Encyclopedia Britannica

Unstable radicals

Simple free radicals such as methyl, ·CH3, also exist and play key roles as transient intermediates in many chemical reactions. The existence of the methyl radical was first demonstrated by Friedrich A. Paneth and W. Hofeditz in 1929 by the following experiment. The vapours of tetramethyllead, Pb(CH3)4, mixed with gaseous hydrogen, H2, were passed through a silica tube at low pressure. When a portion of the tube was heated to about 800° C, the tetramethyllead was decomposed and a mirror of metallic lead deposited on the internal surface of the tube. The gaseous products of the decomposition were found capable of causing the disappearance of a second lead mirror, deposited at a more distant cool point in the tube. Since none of the recognized stable products of the decomposition was able similarly to dissolve a lead mirror, the inference was drawn that methyl radicals formed in the high-temperature decomposition reacted with lead at the cool mirror to regenerate tetramethyllead. Methyl radicals obtained in this way proved to be highly reactive and short-lived. They not only reacted with lead and other metals but also disappeared rapidly and spontaneously, largely by dimerization to ethane, H3C―CH3. Techniques for producing reactive free radicals in the gas phase have been greatly extended by subsequent research. It has been found that various unstable species, such as ethyl, (·C2H5), propyl, (·C3H7), and hydroxyl, (·OH), can be obtained by several methods including: (1) photochemical decomposition of a variety of organic and inorganic materials, (2) reaction between sodium vapour and an alkyl halide, and (3) discharge of electricity through a gas at low pressure. Atoms that arise from dissociation of a diatomic molecule (e.g., the chlorine atom, ·Cl, from the dissociation of the chlorine molecule, Cl2) can also be obtained and have the properties of short-lived radicals of this type.

The existence of the various known unstable free radicals is most commonly demonstrated by the reactions that they undergo. Thus, ethyl radicals, formed from tetraethyllead, Pb(C2H5)4, dissolve zinc and antimony mirrors. The resulting ethyl derivatives of zinc and antimony, Zn(C2H5)2 and Sb(C2H5)3, have been isolated and chemically identified. In a few instances, unstable radicals also have been identified spectroscopically. Here the important technique of flash photolysis, the use of a single, intense flash of light to produce a momentary high concentration of free radicals, is used.

Transient, unstable free radicals also may be produced in solution by several means. A number of molecules, of which organic peroxides are typical, possess such weak chemical bonds that they decompose irreversibly into free radicals on warming in solution. Diacetyl peroxide, for example,is considered to decompose, at least in large part, into carbon dioxide, CO2, and methyl radicals. These, in turn, rapidly attack most organic solvents, often by abstracting hydrogen to given methane, CH4, together with other products. Irradiation of solutions of many organic substances with ultraviolet light leads to the absorption of sufficient energy to disrupt chemical bonds and produce free radicals, and, in fact, most photochemical processes are at present thought to involve free-radical intermediates. The chemical changes that occur when solutions (and also gases) are exposed to high-energy radiation also appear to involve the transient formation of free radicals.

Also called: Free Radical (Show more) Key People: Justus, baron von Liebig Gerhard Herzberg Friedrich Adolf Paneth Moses Gomberg (Show more) Related Topics: alkylidene cyclopentadienyl allyl alkylidyne benzoyloxy (Show more) See all related content

It is generally considered that free radicals are transient intermediates in many high-temperature reactions (such as combustion and the thermal cracking of hydrocarbons), in many photochemical processes, and in a number of other important reactions in organic chemistry, although the concentrations of the free radical intermediates are in general too low for direct detection. One class of free-radical reaction is of particular importance and is illustrated by the following example. Methane, CH4, reacts with chlorine, Cl2, by an overall process that gives chloromethane, CH3Cl, and hydrogen chloride, HCl. The reaction is enormously accelerated by light and apparently involves the following steps:Chlorine atoms are produced in (1) and destroyed in (4), while the products that are actually isolated arise from (2) and (3). Since chlorine atoms consumed in (2) are regenerated in (3), a single atom of chlorine can lead to the production of many molecules of chloromethane. Such processes, in which an intermediate is continually regenerated, are known as chain reactions, and their study constitutes an important branch of chemical kinetics. Similar chains involving transient free radicals are involved in the halogenation of many other organic molecules, in many of the polymerization reactions that are employed in the manufacture of plastics and synthetic rubber, and in the reaction of molecular oxygen, O2, with a great number of organic molecules.