May 20th, 2013
Sometimes the originators of seminal theories in chemistry write a personal and anecdotal account of their work. Niels Bohr[1] was one such
and four decades later Robert Woodward wrote “The conservation of orbital symmetry” (Chem. Soc. Special Publications (Aromaticity), 1967, 21, 217-249; it is not online and so no doi can be given). Much interesting chemistry is described there, but (like Bohr in his article), Woodward lists no citations at the end, merely giving attributions by name. Thus the following chemistry (p 236 of this article) is attributed to a Professor Fonken, and goes as follows (excluding the structure in red):
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References
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N. Bohr, "Der Bau der Atome und die physikalischen und chemischen Eigenschaften der Elemente", Zeitschrift f�r Physik, vol. 9, pp. 1-67, 1922. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01326955
Tags: electrocyclic, pericyclic, Woodward
Posted in Historical, Reaction Mechanism | No Comments »
May 15th, 2013
In the preceding post, I introduced Dewar’s π-complex theory for alkene-metal compounds, outlining the molecular orbital analysis he presented, in which the filled π-MO of the alkene donates into a Ag+ empty metal orbital and back-donation occurs from a filled metal orbital into the alkene π* MO. Here I play a little “what if” game with this scenario to see what one can learn from doing so.
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Posted in Historical, Hypervalency, Interesting chemistry | No Comments »
May 11th, 2013
Lukas, who occasionally comments on this blog, sent me the following challenge. In a recent article[1] he had proposed that the stereochemical outcome (Z) of reaction between a butenal and thioacetic acid as shown below arose by an unusual concerted cycloaddtion involving an S-H bond. He wrote in the article “…this scheme … recommends itself for evaluation by in silico methods“. I asked if the answer could be posted here, and he agreed. So here it is.
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References
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L. Hintermann, and A. Turočkin, "Reversible Generation of Metastable Enols in the 1,4-Addition of Thioacetic Acid to α,β-Unsaturated Carbonyl Compounds", The Journal of Organic Chemistry, vol. 77, pp. 11345-11348, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jo3021709
Posted in Interesting chemistry, Reaction Mechanism | 3 Comments »
May 8th, 2013
The previous post described how the acid catalysed ring opening of propene epoxide by an alcohol (methanol) is preceded by pre-protonation of the epoxide oxygen to form a “hidden intermediate” on the concerted intrinsic reaction pathway to ring opening. Here I take a look at the mechanism where a strong base is present, modelled by tetramethyl ammonium methoxide (R4N+.-OMe), for the two isomers R=Me; R’=Me, R”=H and R’=H, R”=Me.
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Posted in Reaction Mechanism, Tutorial material | No Comments »
May 6th, 2013
In a previous post on the topic, I remarked how the regiospecific ethanolysis of propene epoxide[1] could be quickly and simply rationalised by inspecting the localized NBO orbital calculated for either the neutral or the protonated epoxide. This is an application of Hammond’s postulate[[2] in extrapolating the properties of a reactant to its reaction transition state. This approach implies that for acid-catalysed hydrolysis, the fully protonated epoxide is a good model for the subsequent transition state. But is this true? Can this postulate be tested? Here goes.
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References
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H.C. Chitwood, and B.T. Freure, "", Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 68, pp. 680-683, 1946. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja01208a047
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G.S. Hammond, "", Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 77, pp. 334-338, 1955. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja01607a027
Tags: CF 3 CO, free energy, good model for the subsequent transition state, lower free energy barrier
Posted in Interesting chemistry, Reaction Mechanism | 1 Comment »
April 28th, 2013
I recently got an email from a student asking about the best way of rationalising epoxide ring opening using some form of molecule orbitals. This reminded me of the famous experiment involving propene epoxide.[1]
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References
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H.C. Chitwood, and B.T. Freure, "", Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 68, pp. 680-683, 1946. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja01208a047
Tags: 10.1021, energy, lowest energy, predominant product
Posted in Reaction Mechanism, Tutorial material | No Comments »
April 17th, 2013
This is another in the occasional series of “what a neat molecule”. In this case, more of a “what a neat idea”. The s-triazine below, when coordinated to eg ZnI2, forms what is called a metal-organic-framework, or MOF. A recent article[1] shows how such frameworks can be used to help solve a long-standing problem in structure determination, how to get a crystal structure on a compound that does not crystallise on its own.
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References
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Y. Inokuma, S. Yoshioka, J. Ariyoshi, T. Arai, Y. Hitora, K. Takada, S. Matsunaga, K. Rissanen, and M. Fujita, "X-ray analysis on the nanogram to microgram scale using porous complexes", Nature, vol. 495, pp. 461-466, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11990
Tags: chair, marine natural product, metal, radiation, X-ray
Posted in Interesting chemistry | 1 Comment »
