No abstract

Conditions were found for the successful Effenberger alpha,alpha'-annulation of 3,3-dimethyl-2,4,6-triprenyl cyclohexanone silyl enol ethers with malonyl chloride to give the corresponding bicyclo[3.3.1]nonane-trione in 35% yield, this result allowing a short synthesis of (+/-)-clusianone. An isomeric rearranged bicyclo[3.3.1]nonane-trione was also isolated in 25% yield, and changing the Lewis acid resulted in formation of a lavandulyl-substituted phloroglucinol derivative in 38% yield. The mechanism of formation of these two last products mimics the biogenetic pathway to PPAPs. [reaction: see text].

Abstract. Multifunctional organic nitrates, including carbonyl nitrates, are important species formed in NOx-rich atmospheres by the degradation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These compounds have been shown to play a key role in the transport of reactive nitrogen and, consequently, in the ozone budget; they are also known to be important components of the total organic aerosol. However, very little is known about their reactivity in both the gas and condensed phases. Following a previous study that we published on the gas-phase reactivity of α-nitrooxy ketones, the photolysis and reaction with OH radicals of 4-nitrooxy-2-butanone and 5-nitrooxy-2-pentanone (which are a β-nitrooxy ketone and γ-nitrooxy ketone, respectively) were investigated for the first time in simulation chambers. The photolysis frequencies were directly measured in the CESAM chamber, which is equipped with a very realistic irradiation system. The jnitrate/jNO2 ratios were found to be (5.9±0.9)×10-3 for 4-nitrooxy-2-butanone and (3.2±0.9)×10-3 for 5-nitrooxy-2-pentanone under our experimental conditions. From these results, it was estimated that ambient photolysis frequencies calculated for typical tropospheric irradiation conditions corresponding to the 1 July at noon at 40∘ N (overhead ozone column of 300 and albedo of 0.1) are (6.1±0.9)×10-5 s−1 and (3.3±0.9)×10-5 s−1 for 4-nitrooxy-2-butanone and 5-nitrooxy-2-pentanone, respectively. These results demonstrate that photolysis is a very efficient sink for these compounds with atmospheric lifetimes of few hours. They also suggest that, similarly to α-nitrooxy ketones, β-nitrooxy ketones have enhanced UV absorption cross sections and quantum yields equal to or close to unity and that γ-nitrooxy ketones have a lower enhancement of cross sections, which can easily be explained by the larger distance between the two chromophore groups. Thanks to a product study, the branching ratio between the two possible photodissociation pathways is also proposed. Rate constants for the reaction with OH radicals were found to be (2.9±1.0)×10-12 and (3.3±0.9)×10-12 cm3 molecule−1 s−1, respectively. These experimental data are in good agreement with rate constants estimated by the structure–activity relationship (SAR) of Kwok and Atkinson (1995) when using the parametrization proposed by Suarez-Bertoa et al. (2012) for carbonyl nitrates. Comparison with photolysis rates suggests that the OH-initiated oxidation of carbonyl nitrates is a less efficient sink than photodissociation but is not negligible in polluted areas.

Abstract. A commercial PTR-TOF-MS has been optimized in order to allow the measurement of individual organic nitrates in the atmosphere. This has been accomplished by shifting the distribution between different ionizing analytes, H3O+∕ H3O+(H2O)n or NO+∕ NO2+. The proposed approach has been proven to be appropriate for the online detection of individual alkyl nitrates and functionalized nitrates. It has been shown that hydroxyl and ketonitrates have a high affinity towards NO+, leading to the formation of an adduct that allows the easy identification of the organic nitrate (R) from the R–NO+ ion signal. The recorded sensitivities for both ionization modes correspond to detection limits of tens of ppt min−1 in the case of hydroxy- and ketonitrates. Alkyl nitrates exhibit a moderate affinity towards NO+ ionization leading to detection units of few hundreds of ppt and the highest sensitivity in H3O+ mode was obtained for the water adducts signals. However, this method exhibits much lower capabilities for the detection of peroxyacetyl nitrates with detection limits in the ppb range.