Autoxidation - a case study

This chapter deals with the aspects of autoxidation, complexities that are important with particular substrates. It also looks at the ramifications of autoxidation in biological systems. The chapter outlines the chain-propagating steps for autoxidation, which include the abstraction of hydrogen from substrate. It also mentions the durability of commercial products in the case of hydrocarbons, such as might be enhanced by the minimization of the number of relatively weak tertiary C-H bonds in the molecular structure. The chapter details how initial hydrogen abstraction forms a stabilized pentadienyl radical which that combines with oxygen at a terminal carbon. It looks at the resulting peroxyl radical that abstracts hydrogen from a second skipped diene and gives a hydroperoxide.