Photo‐elimination of nitrogen from fused‐ring triazoles

By irradiation in methanol at 3000Å, aniline and o ‐anisidine were produced from benzo‐triazole and N ‐methylaniline and N ‐methyl‐ o ‐anisidine were produced from N ‐methylbenzotriazole. Carbazole was the only product detected from similar treatment of N ‐phenylbenzotriazole. Linear naphthotriazole was photolytically transformed into β‐naphthylamine but a methoxy derivative could not be found. Angular naphthotriazole gave no identifiable photolytic product. u ‐Triazolo[1,5‐α]pyridine underwent photolysis in methanol to give α‐picoline, α‐picolylmethyl ether and α‐picolylmethanol in low yield. A similar photolysis in acetic acid afforded α‐pyridylmethyl acetate. The mechanisms for the formations of products are discussed.