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Photochemical Generation Of Carbenes And Ketenes From Phenanthrene-Based Precursors Part I: Dimethylalkylidene Part Ii: Diphenylketene, Tarini S. Hardikar, Tarini Hardikar

Honors Theses

Previous studies have shown that the photolysis of phenanthrene-based cyclopropyl precursors can generate carbenes. In this work, a novel phenanthrene precursor was synthesized and photolyzed to generate the dimethylalkylidene carbene, which was subsequently trapped by cyclohexene. The car- bene was not prone to an internal rearrangement as some other carbenes are, and instead favored the intermolecular addition reaction. The precursor also underwent a rearrangement via pericyclic processes. A theoretical analysis of the potential energy surface of the system is presented using coupled cluster and density functional methods. Preliminary analysis for the precursor via time-resolved laser flash photolysis (LFP) was performed. …