US EPA

8686541 

Journal Article 

Molecular photochemistry 

Turro, NJ 

1967 

Yes 

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN: 0009-2347
EISSN: 1520-605X 

45 

2 

84-95 

English 

10.1021/cen-v045n020.p084 

Molecular photochemistry is providing fundamental and useful information about the chemistry of excited states. The role of photochemistry as a synthesis tool for the chemical industry is clear-cut in the case of fine chemicals, in that photoreactions can often offer the cheapest, shortest routes. On a larger scale its role is not yet clear, although a plant to produce 20 million pounds a year of nylon 6 monomer (caprolactam) by the photonitrosylation of cyclohexane has been built by the Japanese. Many "new" photoreactions will continue to appear in the literature, but the number of new primary processes will probably continue to be small. Intelligent exploitation of photochemistry will be hampered until useful quantitative reactivity relationships and lifetime data for a wide variety of organic molecules are available. Although such information has been slow in coming, this is a fertile area for future research.