Archive for the ‘crystal_structure_mining’ Category

The geometries of 5-coordinate compounds of group 14 elements.

Monday, May 30th, 2016

This is a follow-up to one aspect of the previous two posts dealing with nucleophilic substitution reactions at silicon. Here I look at the geometries of 5-coordinate compounds containing as a central atom 4A = Si, Ge, Sn, Pb and of the specific formula C34AO2 with a trigonal bipyramidal geometry. This search arose because of a casual comment I made in the earlier post regarding possible cooperative effects between the two axial ligands (the ones with an angle of ~180 degrees subtended at silicon). Perhaps the geometries might expand upon this comment?

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What is the approach trajectory of enhanced (super?) nucleophiles towards a carbonyl group?

Wednesday, May 11th, 2016

I have previously commented on the Bürgi–Dunitz angle, this being the preferred approach trajectory of a nucleophile towards the electrophilic carbon of a carbonyl group. Some special types of nucleophile such as hydrazines (R2N-NR2) are supposed to have enhanced reactivity[1] due to what might be described as buttressing of adjacent lone pairs. Here I focus in on how this might manifest by performing searches of the Cambridge structural database for intermolecular (non-bonded) interactions between X-Y nucleophiles (X,Y= N,O,S) and carbonyl compounds OC(NM)2.

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References

  1. G. Klopman, K. Tsuda, J. Louis, and R. Davis, "Supernucleophiles—I", Tetrahedron, vol. 26, pp. 4549-4554, 1970. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0040-4020(01)93101-1

Celebrating Paul Schleyer: searching for hidden treasures in the structures of metallocene complexes.

Saturday, April 2nd, 2016

A celebration of the life and work of the great chemist Paul von R. Schleyer was held this week in Erlangen, Germany. There were many fantastic talks given by some great chemists describing fascinating chemistry. Here I highlight the presentation given by Andy Streitwieser on the topic of organolithium chemistry, also a great interest of Schleyer's over the years. I single this talk out since I hope it illustrates why people still get together in person to talk about science.

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Discovery based research experiences: gauche effects in group 16 elements.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016

The upcoming ACS national meeting in San Diego has a CHED (chemical education division) session entitled Implementing Discovery-Based Research Experiences in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses. I had previously explored what I called extreme gauche effects in the molecule F-S-S-F. Here I take this a bit further to see what else can be discovered about molecules containing bonds between group 16 elements (QA= O, S, Se, Te). 

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Bond stretch isomerism. Did this idea first surface 100 years ago?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016

The phenomenon of bond stretch isomerism, two isomers of a compound differing predominantly in just one bond length, is one of those chemical concepts that wax and occasionally wane.[1] Here I explore such isomerism for the elements Ge, Sn and Pb.

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References

  1. J.A. Labinger, "Bond-stretch isomerism: a case study of a quiet controversy", Comptes Rendus. Chimie, vol. 5, pp. 235-244, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1631-0748(02)01380-2

Could anyone comment on any recent calculated results on the planarity, or lack thereof, of azobenzene?

Sunday, December 20th, 2015

This question was posted on the CCL (computational chemistry list) by John McKelvey. Here, I give an answer in the form of a search of the CSD (crystal structure database).

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Deviations from planarity of trigonal carbon and from linearity of digonal carbon.

Sunday, September 13th, 2015

Previously, I explored deviation from ideal tetrahedral arrangements of four carbon ligands around a central (sp3) carbon using crystal structures. Now it is the turn of digonal (sp1) and trigonal (sp2) carbons. 

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Deviations from tetrahedral four-coordinate carbon: a statistical exploration.

Sunday, September 6th, 2015

An article entitled "Four Decades of the Chemistry of Planar Hypercoordinate Compounds"[1] was recently reviewed by Steve Bacharach on his blog, where you can also see comments. Given the recent crystallographic themes here, I thought I might try a search of the CSD (Cambridge structure database) to see whether anything interesting might emerge for tetracoordinate carbon.

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References

  1. L. Yang, E. Ganz, Z. Chen, Z. Wang, and P.V.R. Schleyer, "Four Decades of the Chemistry of Planar Hypercoordinate Compounds", Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 54, pp. 9468-9501, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201410407

π-Resonance in thioamides: a crystallographic “diff” with amides.

Saturday, September 5th, 2015

The previous post explored the structural features of amides. Here I compare the analysis with that for the closely related thioamides.

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π-Resonance in amides: a crystallographic reality check.

Saturday, September 5th, 2015

The π-resonance in amides famously helped Pauling to his proposal of a helical structure for proteins. Here I explore some geometric properties of amides related to the C-N bond and the torsions about it.

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