Synthesis of esters of α-chloroacetoxy-β,β,β,-trichloroethylphosphonic acids

Summary The synthesis of 11 previously unreported dialkyl esters of -mono-, -di-, and -trichloroacetoxy-,,-trichloroethylphosphonic acids has been effected.     

Electrochemical oxidation of tetramethyl esters of α,α,ω,ω-alcaneteracarboxylic acids

Cyclization of esters of butane-1,1,4,4- and pentane-1,1,5,5-tetracarboxylic acids during electrolysis in methanol in the presence of Nal produces, with a yield of 95%, the esters of cyclobutane-1,1,2,2- and cyclopentane-1,1,2,2-tetracarboxylic acids. Under similar conditions, esters of the highest ,,,-alkanetetracarboxylic acids undergo iodation and hydroxymethylation due to electrical oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde. During electrolysis in methanol in the presence of NaOAc, the esters of ,,,-alkanetetracarboxylic acids undergo effective hydroxymethylation, followed by cyclization into substituted five- and six-member lactones, or tetrahydrofurans when structurally possible.N. D. Zelinskii Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117913 Moscow. Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk, Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 10, pp. 2332–2339, October, 1992.     

Preparation, characterization, and catalysis of mecro-catalysts

Because catalysis by metals is a surface phenomenon, many technological catalysts contain small (typically nanometre-sired) supported metal particles with a large fraction of the atoms exposed. Many reactions, such as hydrocarbon hydrogenations, are structure-insensitive, proceeding at approximately the same rates on metal particles of various sizes provided that they are larger than 1 nm and show bulk-like metallic behavior. But the catalytic properties are not known when metal particles become so small that their sizes are indium clusters consisting of several indium atoms. Here the catalytic behavior of precisely defined clusters of just four and six indium atoms on solid supports is shown. It is found that the Ir4 and Ir6 clusters differ in catalytic activity both from each other and from metallic Ir particles.     

Accuracy of geometries: influence of basis set,exchange–correlation potential,inclusion of core electrons,and relativistic corrections

The geometries of a set of small molecules were optimized using eight different exchange–correlation (xc) potentials in a few different basis sets of Slater-type orbitals, ranging from a minimal basis (I) to a triple-zeta valence basis plus double polarization functions (VII). This enables a comparison of the accuracy of the xc potentials in a certain basis set, which can be related to the accuracies of wavefunction-based methods such as Hartree–Fock and coupled cluster. Four different checks are done on the accuracy by looking at the mean error, standard deviation, mean absolute error and maximum error. It is shown that the mean absolute error decreases with increasing basis set size, and reaches a basis set limit at basis VI. With this basis set, the mean absolute errors of the xc potentials are of the order of 0.7–1.3 pm. This is comparable to the accuracy obtained with CCSD and MP2/MP3 methods, but is still larger than the accuracy of the CCSD(T) method (0.2 pm). The best performing xc potentials are found to be Becke–Perdew, PBE and PW91, which perform as well as the hybrid B3LYP potential. In the second part of this paper, we report the optimization of the geometries of five metallocenes with the same potentials and basis sets, either in a nonrelativistic or a scalar relativistic calculation using the zeroth-order regular approximation approach. For the first-row transition-metal complexes, the relativistic corrections have a negligible effect on the optimized structures, but for ruthenocene they improve the optimized Ru–ring distance by some 1.4–2.2 pm. In the largest basis set used, the absolute mean error is again of the order of 1.0 pm. As the wavefunction-based methods either give a poor performance for metallocenes (Hartree–Fock, MP2), or the size of the system makes a treatment with accurate methods such as CCSD(T) in a reasonable basis set cumbersome, the good performance of density functional theory calculations for these molecules is very promising; even more so as density functional theory is an efficient method that can be used without problems on systems of this size, or larger.     

Some peculiarities of hydrosilylation of α,ω-divinyloligosilanes

The stability of Si-Si bonds in linear and cyclic permethyloligosilanes and in ,-divinyloligosilanes under conditions of hydrosilylation in the presence of the Speier's catalyst was studied. Polycarbosilanes containing silylene fragments in their backbone chains were prepared by the reaction of 1,4-bis(dimethylsilyl)benzene with ,-divinyloligosilanes. It was found that the structure of these polymers is disturbed due to the side reaction involving the cleavage of the Si-Si bond in vinyloligosilanes under the action of H₂PtCl₆.Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 10, pp. 2547–2549, October, 1996.