Archive for the ‘Interesting chemistry’ Category
Thursday, July 12th, 2012
Years ago, I was travelling from Cambridge to London on a train. I found myself sitting next to a chemist, and (as chemists do), he scribbled the following on a piece of paper. When I got to work the next day Vera (my student) was unleashed on the problem, and our thoughts were published[1]. That was then.
(more…)
References
- M.S. Baird, J.R. Al Dulayymi, H.S. Rzepa, and V. Thoss, "An unusual example of stereoelectronic control in the ring opening of 3,3-disubstituted 1,2-dichlorocyclopropenes", Journal of the Chemical Society, Chemical Communications, pp. 1323, 1992. https://doi.org/10.1039/c39920001323
Tags:Cambridge, chemist, conformational analysis, free energy, Historical, Internet era, London, pericyclic, perturbation energy, re-analysis using modern algorithms, Reaction Mechanism, Skolnik
Posted in Interesting chemistry, reaction mechanism | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 5th, 2012
Back in 1994, we published the crystal structure of the molecule below (X=H), a putative anti-malarial drug called halofantrine. Little did we realise that a whole area of organo catalysis based on a thiourea catalyst with a similar motif would emerge a little later. Here is how the two are connected.
(more…)
Tags:Historical, MPEG, Peter Schreiner, Skolnik
Posted in Chemical IT, Interesting chemistry | 3 Comments »
Monday, May 28th, 2012
Streptomycin is an antibiotic active against tuberculosis, and its discovery has become something of a cause célèbre. It was first isolated on October 19, 1943 by a graduate student Albert Schatz in the laboratory of Selman Waksman at Rutgers University. I want to concentrate in this post on its molecular structure. Its initial isolation was followed by an extraordinarily concentrated period of about three years devoted to identifying that structure, culminating in a review of this chemistry in 1948 by Lemieux and Wolfram.[1] This review presents the structure as shown below (left). The modern rendering on the right is based on a crystal structure done in 1978.[2]‡
(more…)
References
- R. Lemieux, and M. Wolfrom, "The Chemistry of Streptomycin", Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry, pp. 337-384, 1948. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0096-5332(08)60034-x
- S. Neidle, D. Rogers, and M.B. Hursthouse, "The crystal and molecular structure of streptomycin oxime selenate tetrahydrate", Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, vol. 359, pp. 365-388, 1978. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1978.0047
Tags:Albert Schatz, candidate for its formula, Historical, laboratory of Selman Waksman, MS, muse, pence, Rutgers University, tuberculosis, X-ray
Posted in Interesting chemistry | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 7th, 2012
The mechanism of the reaction of alkenes known as ozonolysis was first set out in its modern form by Criegee. The crucial steps, (a), (b) and (d), are all pericyclic cycloaddition/eliminations. The last step (e) is known as reductive ozonolysis, and this step is often treated as an afterthought, part of the work-up of the reaction if you like (it is not illustrated in Criegee’s review for example). Here, I will attempt to show that it is actually a very interesting mechanistic step.
(more…)
Tags:200th post, Historical, pericyclic, S bridge
Posted in Interesting chemistry | 4 Comments »
Monday, April 30th, 2012
During the 1960s, a holy grail of synthetic chemists was to devise an efficient route to steroids. R. B. Woodward was one the chemists who undertook this challenge, starting from compounds known as dienones (e.g. 1) and their mysterious conversion to phenols (e.g. 2 or 3) under acidic conditions. This was also the golden era of mechanistic exploration, which coupled with an abundance of radioactive isotopes from the war effort had ignited the great dienone-phenol debates of that time (now largely forgotten). In a classic recording from the late 1970s, Woodward muses how chemistry had changed since he started in the early 1940s. In particular he notes how crystallography had revolutionised the reliability and speed of molecular structure determination. Here I speculate what he might have made of modern computational chemistry, and in particular whether it might cast new light on those mechanistic controversies of the past.
(more…)
Tags:computational chemist, computational chemistry, Historical, pericyclic, sigmatropic shifts, tracer labelling
Posted in Chemical IT, Interesting chemistry | 1 Comment »
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
Astronomers who discover an asteroid get to name it, mathematicians have theorems named after them. Synthetic chemists get to name molecules (Hector’s base and Meldrum’s acid spring to mind) and reactions between them. What do computational chemists get to name? Transition states! One of the most famous of recent years is the Houk-List.
(more…)
Tags:catalysis, condensation, energy, gas-phase optimised geometry, Historical, Houk-List, smallest steric exchange energy, so-called single-point solvation energy correction, steric exchange energy
Posted in Interesting chemistry | 4 Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2012
Chemists love a mystery as much as anyone. And gaps in patterns can be mysterious. Mendeleev’s period table had famous gaps which led to new discovery. And so from the 1890s onwards, chemists searched for the perbromate anion, BrO4–. It represented a gap between perchlorate and periodate, both of which had long been known. As the failure to turn up perbromate persisted, the riddle deepened. Finally, in 1968, the key was found, but talk about sledgehammer to crack a nut! It was done by alchemical-like radioactive transmutation of selenium into bromine:
(more…)
Tags:alkaline sodium hypobromite solution, chemical synthesis, Historical, metal catalysis, present chemical knowledge, speculative chemist
Posted in Interesting chemistry | No Comments »
Monday, March 12th, 2012
In my previous post I speculated why bis(trifluoromethyl) ketone tends to fully form a hydrate when dissolved in water, but acetone does not. Here I turn to asking why formaldehyde is also 80% converted to methanediol in water? Could it be that again, the diol is somehow preferentially stabilised compared to the carbonyl precursor and if so, why?
(more…)
Tags:free energy, lowest energy geometry, O Lp, Oxygen Lp, solvation, Tutorial material
Posted in Interesting chemistry | 3 Comments »