An E.S.R. Investigation of Ethoxy and Trimethylsilyloxy Iminyl Radicals

Trimethylsilyloxy and ethoxy iminyls (4a-i) have been generated by photolysis of solutions of the corresponding trimethylsilyl and ethyl N- chloro imidates , in the cavity of an e.s.r. spectrometer. The unpaired electron resides in a 2py orbital on nitrogen in concurrence with the results of MNDO and INDO calculations. The bimolecular rate constants for decay of trimethylsilyloxy t-butyl iminyl (4c) have been evaluated. Trimethylsilyloxy 1,l-dimethylbut-3-enyl iminyl (4e) undergoes an N-C d cyclization.