Study of interaction of aliphatic alcohols with primary radical cations of<i>n</i>-alkanes using MARY spectroscopy

Abstract

MARY spectroscopy (the radical ion pair level crossing technique) was employed to probe the reaction of proton transfer from primary radical cations of n-alkanes to alcohol molecules in liquid solution. Alcohols were demonstrated to react with the primary radical cation of the solvent, leaving the counterion of the radical ion pair unaffected. The broadening of the zero field MARY line, tentatively attributed to the proton transfer reaction, was found to be independent of the proton affinity of the species in the studied systems, estimated from gas-phase data. The rate constant of the reaction is close to the diffusion controlled limit within the experimental accuracy for all the studied alcohol/solvent combinations.