Evidence for the contribution of degenerate hydrogen atom transport to the persistence of sulfanyl radicals anchored to nanostructured hybrid materials

Nanostructured functionalized silicas were used as a platform to compare the behaviour of anchored arylsulfanyl radicals depending on the nature of the precursor (diazene/thiol). The radicals generated from thiols exhibit higher half-lifetimes than the radicals generated from diazenes. The ability of thiols to maintain the sulfanyl radical density via degenerate hydrogen atom transfer is likely to account for this sharp difference.