Excited-state kinetics in the photolysis of azoethane and hexafluoroazomethane at 366 nm,up to one atmosphere pressure,and from room temperature to 150°C

The photochemistry of azoethane and hexafluoroazomethane at 366 nm has been reinvestigated up to 1 atm pressure, and over a range of temperature from 27 to 150°C. The Stern-Volmer type quenching plots primarily demonstrate the decomposition of a single electronic and vibrationally excited state for azoethane, but competitive photodissociation from two different electronic and vibrationally excited states, which was previously postulated for hexafluoroazomethane and azoisopropane, is confirmed for hexafluoroazomethane. It is concluded, however, that two different electronic and vibrationally excited photodissociating states are present in azoethane photolysis, but that one of them is difficult to detect, at least by the present approach Photosensitization with biacetyl at 436 nm also causes the dissociation of azoethane, and this is probably from the vibrationally equilibrated first triplet state. The energy barrier for this process was found to be 5.0 kcal/mol.