Electron Spin Resonance Spectra of Carbonyl Anion Radicals

Abstract

Electron spin resonance studies are reported on the anion radicals of single‐ring aromatic ompounds containing aldehyde, acetyl, or amide groups, as well as other substituents. The radicals were generated by electrolytic reduction in N,N‐dimethylformamide solution. Many of the radicals have spectra which indicate that the carbonyl group is locked in a conformation planar with the ring for times of the order of a microsecond or longer. The para dicarbonyls and the 3‐cyanoacetophenone anion were found to be present in both the cis and trans modifications. A simple modification of conventional molecular‐orbital theory has been used with considerable success to account for the loss of symmetry in the pi‐electron spin density for compounds with a locked carbonyl group, and the calculated energy differences for the cis and trans isomers are in good agreement with experiment. Molecular‐orbital calculations of spin densities were made for most of the radicals, often with excellent results, and comparisons are made with the predictions of valence‐bond theory. The benzaldehyde, acetophenone, and 4‐fluoroacetophenone anions have spectra with abnormally small ring‐proton splitting constants, and no satisfactory explanation of these anomalous results has been found. The appearance or nonappearance in all the radicals but these three of twofold symmetry in the pattern of splitting constants is interpreted qualitatively in terms of competing effects determined by the bond order of the bond between the ring and the carbonyl group, and steric factors in the neighborhood of the carbonyl group. A number of features of the experimentally determined spin‐density distributions have been correlated with the relative electron‐withdrawing effects of the substituents.