Macroscopic Polarization Change of Mononuclear Valence Tautomeric Cobalt Complexes Through the Use of Enantiopure Ligand

The crystallization of a complex having electron transfer properties in a polar space group can induce the polarization switching of a crystal in a specific direction, which is attractive for the development of sensors, memory devices, and capacitors. Unfortunately, the probability of crystallization in a polar space group is usually low. Noticing that enantiopure compounds crystallize in Sohncke space groups, this paper reports a strategy for the molecular design of non-ferroelectric polarization switching crystals based on the use of intramolecular electron transfer and chirality. In addition, this paper describes the synthesis of a mononuclear valence tautomeric (VT) cobalt complex bearing an enantiopure ligand. The introduction of enantiomer enables the crystallization of the complex in the polar space group (P2₁). The polarization of the crystals along the b-axis direction is not canceled out and the VT transition is accompanied by a change in the macroscopic polarization of the polar crystal. Polarization switching via electron transfer is realized at around room temperature.     

Vertex-disjoint cycles in local tournaments

Let $r$ be a positive integer. The Bermond–Thomassen conjecture states that, a digraph of minimum out-degree at least $2r-1$ contains $r$ vertex-disjoint directed cycles. A digraph $D$ is called a local tournament if for every vertex $x$ of $D$, both the out-neighbours and the in-neighbours of $x$ induce tournaments. Note that tournaments form the subclass of local tournaments. In this paper, we verify that the Bermond–Thomassen conjecture holds for local tournaments. In particular, we prove that every local tournament $D$ with ${\delta }^{+}\left(D\right)\ge 2r-1$ contains $r$ disjoint cycles $C_1,C_2,\dots ,C_r$, satisfying that either $C_i$ has the length at most 4 or is a shortest cycle of the original digraph of $D-C_1-\dots -C_{i-1}$ for $1\le i\le r$.     

Redox‐Controlled Olefin (Co)Polymerization Catalyzed by Ferrocene‐Bridged Phosphine‐Sulfonate Palladium Complexes

The facile and reversible interconversion between neutral and oxidized forms of palladium complexes containing ferrocene‐bridged phosphine sulfonate ligands was demonstrated. The activity of these palladium complexes could be controlled using redox reagents during ethylene homopolymerization, ethylene/methyl acrylate copolymerization, and norbornene oligomerization. Specifically in norbornene oligomerization, the neutral complexes were not active at all whereas the oxidized counterparts showed appreciable activity. In situ switching between the neutral and oxidized forms resulted in an interesting “off” and “on” behavior in norbornene oligomerization. This work provides a new strategy to control the olefin polymerization process.     

Pitfalls in the experimental recording of ultrasonic (backscatter) polar scans for material characterization

The ultrasonic polar scan (UPS), either in transmission, reflection or backscatter mode, is a promising non-destructive testing technique for the characterization of composites, providing information about the mechanical anisotropy, the viscoelastic damping, the surface roughness, and more. At present, the technique is merely being used for qualitative purposes. The limited quantitative exploration and use of the technique can be primarily ascribed to limitations of current theoretical models as well as the difficulty to perform accurate, and more importantly, reproducible UPS experiments. Over the last years, we have identified several potential pitfalls in the experimental implementation of the technique which severely deteriorate the accurateness and reproducibility of a UPS. In this paper, we make an inventory of the most important difficulties, illustrate each of them by a real experiment and present a feasible mediation, either numerical or experimental in nature. Once the experimental set-up is fine-tuned to overcome these pitfalls, it is expected that the recording of high-level UPS experiments, in combination with numerical computations, will facilitate the technique to become a fully quantitative non-destructive characterization method.     

Chiral separability of boron cluster species studied by screening approaches utilizing polysaccharide‐based chiral stationary phases

In this study, the screening steps of chiral separation strategies with polysaccharide‐based chiral stationary phases were applied on boron cluster compounds in normal‐phase liquid chromatography (NPLC) and polar organic solvents chromatography (POSC). Since the screening steps were initially developed to analyze organic compounds, their applicability for boron clusters was investigated. Overall, the screening steps in NPLC were applicable for the separation of zwitterions, while for anions mostly no elution was observed. A hypothesis for the latter behavior is precipitation of anions in the nonpolar mobile phases. Ten out of 11 compounds could be partially or baseline separated on the NPLC screening systems. In POSC, all zwitterions were separated on at least one of the screening systems, with an overall lower retention as in NPLC. Anions were detected but not separated in the majority of the experiments. Also their retention on the chiral stationary phases was very limited. This study showed that the chiral discrimination potential of chemically modified polysaccharides is meaningful for chiral separations of structurally chiral boron cluster species, but needs further systematic research, in which recognition mechanisms should be further explored. In addition, some unusual peaks also indicated that conditions with a high separation efficiency must first be searched for some of the tested systems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

含BN旋转轴的光驱动分子马达的理论设计和机理研究

依据B=N键与C=C键的电子结构相似性,以Feringa型二苯乙烯型光驱动分子马达（CC-stilbene）为母体,设计了含极性旋转轴的模型马达BN-stilbene.CASPT2//CASSCF计算结果表明,优化所得的BN-stilbene分子的基态存在四个与CC-stilbene马达结构相似、相对能量一致的螺旋异构体;B=N极性共价双键对BN-stilbene的基态和激发态电子结构有显著影响.对BN-stilbene模型马达的工作机理研究表明,极性旋转轴的引入使得BN-stilbene中S₁/S₀-CI与激发态中间体构型更加相似且能量更低,同时可增加旋转的驱动力,起到改进分子马达光异构化过程的单向性的目的.     

Separation of three polar compounds from Rheum tanguticum by high‐speed countercurrent chromatography with an ethyl acetate/glacial acetic acid/water system

The separation of polar compounds by high‐speed countercurrent chromatography is still regarded as a challenge. In this study, an efficient strategy for the separation of three polar compounds from Rheum tanguticum has been successfully conducted by using high‐speed countercurrent chromatography. X‐5 macroporous resin chromatography was used for the fast enrichment of the target compounds. Then, the target fraction was directly introduced into high‐speed countercurrent chromatography for separation using ethyl acetate/glacial acetic acid/water (100:1:100, v/v/v) as the solvent system. Consequently, three polar compounds including gallic acid, catechin, and gallic acid 4‐O‐β‐d ‐(6′‐O‐galloyl) glucoside were obtained with purities higher than 98%. The results showed glacial acetic acid could be such an appropriate regulator for the ethyl acetate/water system. This study provides a reference for the separation of polar compounds from natural products by high‐speed countercurrent chromatography.     

A simple approach to prepare a sulfone‐embedded stationary phase for HPLC

In the present study, a polar‐embedded reversed‐phase liquid chromatographic stationary phase that contained internal sulfone groups was prepared. The synthesis involved the “thiol‐ene” click chemistry between the vinyl functionalized silica and 1‐octadecanethiol, followed by the oxidization of sulfide to sulfone groups. The resulting material simultaneously possessed the alkyl chain, i.e. C18, and the internal sulfone groups. Elemental analysis demonstrates that the element contents of the C18/sulfone silica were C 8.94%, H 1.87% and S 0.66%. Chromatographic evaluations indicate that the C18/sulfone stationary phase exhibited a little less retention than the C18/sulfide one. A comparable chromatographic performance of neutral analytes was obtained on these two columns, but much better chromatographic performance in the case of basic and acid analytes was obtained on C18/sulfone stationary phase with additional features such as lower silanol activity, better stability (stable working conditions of pH 1.0–10.0), and better compatibility with 100% aqueous mobile phases. The batch‐to‐batch reproducibility was acceptable (the RSDs of retention times for the probes were no higher than 1.73%), demonstrating the suitability of the applied synthetic strategy for the new stationary phase. The C18/sulfone is a promising polar‐embedded RPLC stationary phase.     

Sub-weakly Embedded Singular and Degenerate Polar Spaces

We show that every sub-weak embedding of any singular (degenerate or not) orthogonal or unitary polar space of non-singular rank at least 3 in a projective space PG , a commutative field, is the projection of a full embedding in some subspace PG of PG , where PG contains PG and is a subfield of . The same result is proved in the symplectic case under the assumption that the field over which the polarity is defined is perfect if the characteristic is 2 and if each secant line of the embedded polar space contains exactly two points of . This completes the classification of all sub-weak embeddings of orthogonal, symplectic and unitary polar spaces (singular or not; degenerate or not) of non-singular rank at least 3 and defined over a commutative field , where in the characteristic 2 case is perfect if the polar space is symplectic and the degree of the embedding is 2.