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Old June 7th, 2006, 16:29
Benzene Benzene is offline
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Isobutane with a radical in the center carbon would be the result of a homolytic cleavage. Heterolytic cleavage means, both of the electrons (in a bond) end up residing in one of the cleaved parts, and not equally shared. For instance, if you're breaking H-Br in a way that makes H+ and Br-, that would be a heterolytic cleavage, but if you're breaking H-Br in a way that makes H* and Br* (where * is a single electron), that's a homolytic cleavage because the electron pair was divided equally between the two cleaved parts.

And yes, D is what happens in a propagation, I think. Due to a radical, alkane cleaves homolytically to form a alkyl radical. Then that breaks an X2 and forms a halogenated alkane with an X*.