New Thermal and Photochemical Routes to Dewar Furan and Other Isomers on the C4H4O Energy Surface: the Role of Isobenzofuran as a Trapping Agent

Photolysis of the specially synthesized substrate (39) leads to quantitative fragmentation into the phthalimide (56) and Dewar furan (4a). Dewar furan has only transient existence even at -65°, yet can be trapped effectively with isobenzofuran but not furan. Rapid isomerization to cycloprop-2-enecarbaldehyde (57) occurs at the photolysis temperatures and this product is also trapped by the isobenzofuran . In the absence of trapping agent, photolysis of (39) produces some furan but no 1H n.m.r . evidence can be obtained for (4a) or (57), even at low temperatures (-85°). Separate irradiation of (57) causes extensive polymerization, without yielding other recognizable products. Furan is concluded, therefore, to arise from photoisomerization of (4a) rather than photochemical or thermal isomerization of (57). Separate thermal study of (57) shows that isomerization to furan only occurs above 420°. Flash vacuum pyrolysis of the polycyclic epoxide (72) provides a new retro- Diels-Alder route to (57) which likely proceeds via (4a) as an intermediate. At high temperatures (57) is isomerized to furan. A new Dewar benzene oxide (41) and Dewar benzene (45) are reported en route to the photosubstrates (39) and (50) respectively. Photolysis of (50) provides a high-yielding source of cyclobutadiene , which in the absence of trapping agent yields the syn-dimer (59).