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The photochemical reactivities of 2-halobenzyl phenyl ether, in which 2-halobenzyl moiety are tethered to phenyl moiety by the etheral alkyl linkage, has been studied. In the presence of nitrogen, the photochemical reaction of 2-chlorobenzyl phenyl ether (1) produces mainly phenol and photo-Fries type reaction products, while the corresponding bromo analog 2 produces photocyclization and photoreduced products, along with phenol and photo-Fries type products. The former result implies that since chlorine is bound to the benzyl ring firmly, the rather weaker CH2-O bond of 1 is cleavaged to produce the photo-Fries type product. The latter implies that the photoinduced fission of phenyl-bromine bond of 2 can compete with the fission of CH2-O bond, since the bond energy of phenyl-bromine is lower than that of phenyl-chlorine. Since by the presence of oxygen the formation of phenol is not affected much, the formation of photo-Fries type products is changed a little, and the formations of photocyclization and photoreduced products are affected effectively, a singlet state is involved in the formation of phenol, and both singlet and triplet state may be involved in the formation of photo-Fries type reaction, while a triplet state is involved in the formation of photocyclization and photoreduction products.
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