On the rates of decarbonylation of hydroxyacetyl and other acyl radicals

Abstract The rate of decarbonylation of the hydroxyacetyl radical in acetonitrile is measured by effect modulated ESR spectroscopy and found to be log (KD/s−1) = (11.0 ± 1.5)–(2.3RT)−1 (37 ± 8)kJ/mol. The result is shown to be reasonably well connected with a variety of decarbonylation data known for other acyl species by asimple Evans‐Polanyi relation.