| Abstract: | α-Methylstyrene (α-Me-St) in bulk undergoes a variety of thermally induced processes which we investigated in detail by product-distribution analysis. The oligomeric products, shown by GC–MS coupling techniques and independent syntheses, consisted of nine dimers and nine trimers with no detectable higher oligomers or polymers. Two isomeric cyclobutanes and one of the open-chain unsaturated dimers were formed by a conventional two-step cycloaddition; a Flory-type diradical was the common intermediate. In contrast to these 2π + 2π products, the majority of the remaining oligomers could not be interpreted on the basis of π-electron interaction between closed shell molecules. Their structures, however, were compatible with a free radical process in which cumyl(MH·) and 1,4-dimethyl-1-phenyl-tetrahydronaphthalene-yl(THN·), which are consecutive products of 4π + 2π and 2π + 2π interactions, respectively, were involved in addition and transfer reactions. Because of the small rate of initiation and the obvious lack of free radical recombination products, a mechanism was suggested in which MH· and THN· radicals react predominantly in a closed sequence of elementary processes and to a rather small extent only by bimolecular free radical termination. Two sorts of stabilization steps, hydrogen transfer to monomer (RnH· + M → Rn + MH·) and hydrogen abstraction from a hypothetical 4π + 2π intermediate I (RnH· + I → RnH2 + THN·), are attributed to the high rates of unsaturated and saturated oligomer formation. |
