To Boldly Look Where No One Has Looked Before: Identifying the Primary Photoproducts of Acetylacetone

We investigate the gas-phase photochemistry of the enolone tautomer of acetylacetone (pentane-2,4-dione) following S2(ππ*) ← S0 excitation at λ = 266 and 248 nm, using three complementary time-resolved spectroscopic methods. Contrary to earlier reports, which claimed to study one-photon excitation of acetylacetone and found OH and CH3 as the only important gas-phase products, we detect 15 unique primary photoproducts and demonstrate that five of them, including OH and CH3, arise solely by multiphoton excitation. We assign the one-photon products to six photochemical channels and show that the most significant pathway is phototautomerization to the diketone form, which is likely an intermediate in several of the other product channels. Furthermore, we measure the equilibrium constant of the tautomerization of the enolone to diketone on S0 from 320 to 600 K and extract ΔH = 4.1 ± 0.3 kcal·mol–1 and ΔS = 6.8 ± 0.5 cal·mol–1·K–1 using a van’t Hoff analysis. We correct the C–OH bond dissociation energy in acet...