Kinetics and mechanism of the thermal decomposition of the isoxazoline compounds

Abstract

The decomposition of the isoxazole ring at 160–280°C formed by the addition of ethylene to methyland ethyl–substituted benzonitrile oxides is studied. The reaction consists in the cleavage of the isoxazole ring into acetaldehyde and the corresponding aromatic nitrile. Its rate in the melt and in inert solvents, such as chlorobenzene, only weakly depends on the structure of the aromatic substituent, with the kinetic parameters having low values: E = (104 ± 8) kJ/mol and log(A, s–1) = 7.2 ± 0.8. Only if the benzene ring has three ethyl substituents, the decomposition of the compound in the melt proceeds faster than in solution. The rate of the decomposition of the ring decreases with increasing viscosity of the medium, being higher in solvents with a lower strength of the C–H bond. For compounds with the fully deuterated isoxazole ring, the inverse kinetic H/D isotope effect is observed. The results are explained in terms of the biradical mechanism of the opening of the isoxazole ring that involves an effective recombination of the biradical and its loss through a synchronous rearrangement with acetaldehyde release.