Photodissociation of Trimethylene Sulfoxide. Energy Partitioning and the Possible Formation of SO(1Δ)

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/j100460a010

On direct photolysis or Hg(³P₁) sensitized decomposition trimethylene sulfoxide (I) undergoes fragmentation in the gas phase to yield ethylene, propylene, and cyclopropane.There is a nonrandom distribution of the available energy in the cyclopropane-forming reaction which is interpreted to indicate that, in order to conserve spin angular momentum, this reaction channel may be driven to produce SO(¹Δ) during direct photolysis, and SO(³Σ) during Hg(³P₁) sensitized decomposition.There is a comparison of some aspects of the photochemistry of trimethylene sulfoxide to cyclobutanone photochemistry.