Designing Models to Elucidate Radical Reaction Mechanisms

This book talks about how to design a model organic molecule to study radical reaction mechanisms. The molecule must incorporate a radical-generating element that can give the target radical under certain condition, such as heat or light (e.g., laser), and a radical-detecting element that can detect the product radical once the reaction occurs. Both the radical-generating and the radical-detecting processes must be fast enough to allow accurate kinetic measurements. This model-designing strategy was applied to mimic the radical reactions catalyzed by diol dehydratase (DD) and the excess electron transfer (EET, or reductive electron transfer) process, where radical anions are the intermediates, in biological molecules. The designing process was illustrated during the studies of DD-catalyzed reactions and EET.