Molecular Magnesium Hydrides

Solid magnesium hydride [MgH₂]_∞ has been pursued as a potential hydrogen‐storage material. Organic chemists were rather interested in soluble magnesium hydride reagents from mid‐20th century. It was only in the last two decades that molecular magnesium hydride chemistry received a major boost from organometallic chemists with a series of structurally well‐characterized examples that continues to build a whole new class of compounds. More than 40 such species have been isolated, ranging from mononuclear terminal hydrides to large hydride clusters with more than 10 magnesium atoms. They provide not only insights into the structure and bonding of Mg?H motifs, but also serve as models for hydrogen‐storage materials. Some of them are also recognized to participate in catalytic transformations, such as hydroelementation. Herein, an overview of these molecular magnesium hydrides is given, focusing on their synthesis and structural characterization.     

Equilibrated stereostructures of hydrated geraniin and mallotusinic acid

Partial revision of the hydrated structure, and determination of the absolute configurations of geraniin and mallotusinic acid lead to structures I-A and II-A, respectively.     

Neutron activation analysis of arsenic in rocks and sediments by direct evolution with chloride- and bromide-condensed phosphoric acid reagents

A simple method is presented for the determination of arsenic in rocks and in sediments by neutron activation. After irradiating a sample it is, without any other treatment, directly heated in condensed phosphoric acid containing sodium chloride or sodium bromide to evolve arsenic as arsenic(III) chloride or bromide. The distillate is absorbed in distilled water, in which arsenic is later precipitated in elementary form by adding hypophosphite to the solution. From arsenite, arsenic(III) oxide, arsenate and arsenic(III) sulphide, arsenic chloride can be evolved with NaCl-CPA reagent, but elementary arsenic and arsenic(V) oxide do not react with it. However, metallic arsenic is found to react with KIO₃-NaCl-CPA and arsenic(V) oxide with the NaBr-CPA, both both evolving arsenic(III) chloride or bromide. Therefore, successive distillations, the first with NaCl-CPA and the second with NaBr-CPA, give a satisfactory means of differential determination of arsenic(III) and arsenate as well as arsenic(V) oxide. For the elementary arsenic a problem still now remains. The chemical recovery of carrier goes well beyond 95%. Part of this work was performed at the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University.     

Intramolecular cyclization mediated by silylmetalation of acetylenes with PhMe2SiMgMe/CuI and radical nature of the reagent

Whereas CuI catalyzed silylmagnesation of the tosylate of 5- hexyn-l-ol with the title reagent affords dimethylphenylsilylmethylenecyclopentane exclusively, the mesylate of 3-butyn-l-ol gives a mixture of unexpected silylcyclobutene and cyclopropylidene derivative.     

A sensitive spectrofluorimetric determination of human serum albumin with chrome azurol S

A simple and sensitive method for assay of human serum albumin (5–80 μg) is based on binding of chrome azurol S by the albumin and determination of the bound dye spectrofluorimetrically. The method is sufficiently sensitive for application to spinal fluid (20–100 μl).