Competitive photoenolization in the photochemistry of the free radical photoinitiator OXE02.
- 1Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Ottawa Ottawa ON K1N 6N5 Canada [email protected].
Abstract
OXE02 is an oxime ester photoinitiator widely used in industrial photopolymerization, where radical generation proceeds through N-O bond cleavage. However, the presence of an o-methylbenzophenone moiety raises the possibility of a competing Norrish type II photoenolization pathway. In this study, we investigated whether photoenolization competes with the primary fragmentation process. The results of quantum yield measurements and transient absorbance spectroscopy provide strong evidence that photoenolization is a competing photochemical pathway, which can decrease the efficiency of radical generation and should therefore be considered when evaluating the photochemical performance of OXE02. While it has been reported that OXE02 shows anomalous photochemical behavior, in our hands OXE02 appears to follow the fundamental paradigms of photochemistry without any problem.
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BibTeX
@article{didarataee2026competitive,
title = {{Competitive photoenolization in the photochemistry of the free radical photoinitiator OXE02.}},
author = {Saba Didarataee and Juan C Scaiano},
journal = {RSC advances},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1039/d6ra07302f},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42841000},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Competitive photoenolization in the photochemistry of the free radical photoinitiator OXE02.
AU - Saba Didarataee
AU - Juan C Scaiano
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
JO - RSC advances
DO - 10.1039/d6ra07302f
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42841000
AB - OXE02 is an oxime ester photoinitiator widely used in industrial photopolymerization, where radical generation proceeds through N-O bond cleavage. However, the presence of an o-methylbenzophenone moiety raises the possibility of a competing Norrish type II photoenolization pathway. In this study, we investigated whether photoenolization competes with the primary fragmentation process. The results of quantum yield measurements and transient absorbance spectroscopy provide strong evidence that photoenolization is a competing photochemical pathway, which can decrease the efficiency of radical generation and should therefore be considered when evaluating the photochemical performance of OXE02. While it has been reported that OXE02 shows anomalous photochemical behavior, in our hands OXE02 appears to follow the fundamental paradigms of photochemistry without any problem.
SN - 2046-2069
ER -