What is it about?
Identification of a common intermediate in the formation of two products
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Why is it important?
Many reactions involve formation of two products from a single starting material. Let us say you can write a reaction mechanism which involves a common intermediate, and another one where there are no common intermediates. can you carry out an experiment which will distinguish these two possibilities ? If there is a step involving "H-X" bond breaking or forming, in the formation of one product and the other does not a possibility exists. We describe an experiment that was performed to identify such a branch point in the reaction path.
Perspectives
Many reactions involve branch points. Identification of these branch points might help in improving the yield of one product or explain why one is formed in greater amounts. If an isotope effect is expected only in one branch, changes in the ratios of the two product will be induced by the isotope effect. This technique increases the confidence level of the hypothesis.
Professor Ashoka G Samuelson
Indian Institute of Science
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The induced kinetic isotope effect as a tool for mechanistic discrimination, Journal of the Chemical Society Chemical Communications, January 1981, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c39810000354.
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