The driving force behind radical clock reactions is their ability to rearrange. Some common radical clocks are radical cyclizations, ring openings, and 1,2-migrations. Two popular rearrangements are the cyclization of 5-hexenyl and the ring-opening of cyclopropylmethyl:
5-hexenyl radical undergoes cyclization to produce a five-membered ring because this is entropically and enthalpically more favored than the six-membered ring possibility. The rate-constant for this reaction is 2.3×10 s at 298 K.
Cyclopropylmethyl radical undergoes a very rapid ring opening rearrangement that relieves the ring strain and is enthalpically favorable. The rate-constant for this reaction is 8.6×10 s at 298 K.
In order to determine absolute rate constants for radical reactions, unimolecular clock reactions need to be calibrated for each group of radicals such as primary alkyls over a range of time. Through the usage of EPR spectroscopy, the absolute rate constants for unimolecular reactions can be measured with a variety of temperatures. The Arrhenius equation can then be applied to calculate the rate constant for a specific temperature at which the radical clock reactions are conducted.
When using a radical clock to study a reaction, there is an implicit assumption that the rearrangement rate of the radical clock is the same as when the rate of that rearrangement reaction rate is determined. A theoretical study of the rearrangement reactions of cyclobutylmethyl and of 5-hexenyl in a variety of solvents found that their reaction rates were only very slightly affected by the nature of the solvent.
The rates of radical clocks can be adjusted to increase or decrease by what types of substituents are attached to the radical clock. In the figure below, the rates of the radical clocks are shown with a variety of substituents attached to the clock.
By selecting among the general classes of radical clocks and the specific substituents on them, one can be chosen with a rate-constant suitable for studying reactions having a wide range of rates. Reactions having rates ranging from 10 to 10 M s have been studied using radical clocks.