Kinetics of the reactions of cyclopropane derivatives, part II. The gas‐phase pyrolysis of cyclopropylamine

At temperatures of 356‐425°C and pressures of 15–60 Torr, cyclopropylamine reacts to give an equimolar mixture of ammonia and N‐propylidenecyclopropylamine as the initial product. The reaction is first order, homogeneous, and unaffected by the presence of radical inhibitors, and thus proceeds by an initial rate‐determining unimolecular isomerization to give a reactive intermediate, which then reacts with a further molecule of cyclopropylamine to give the observed products. Reaction in the presence of added aliphatic amines gives other imines in addition, and the nature of these indicates that the intermediate is propenylamine or its tautomer propylideneamine: equation image