A theoretical study on the protonation of cycloalkanes CnH2n (n = 3 to 6)

Ab initio self-consistent-field molecular orbital calculations have been carried out for the C_nH_2n (n = 3 to 6) cycloalkanes and various conformers of their protonated forms. The calculated protonation energies for the sequence of conformers of the protonated forms follow the experimentally observed trend. Correlations between optimum C? C? C bond angles at the protonation site and the calculated protonation energies have been observed, and these correlations may be of some use in estimating protonation energy-bond angle relations in other (strained) cyclic compounds when the central carbon atom of a C? C? C moiety is protonated.     

The degree of rotation independence of conjugation of S-N bonds

The electron delocalization in pi-electron systems is frequently described qualitatively by the concept of conjugation between formal double bonds separated by a formal single bond. In carbon compounds the optimum conjugation usually requires a rather strict, geometrical condition: the exact or near coplanarity of the participating carbon atoms. However, the geometrical conditions are much less strict for third-row atoms if the bonding involves valence-shell d orbitals. In some sulfur compounds, such as N-sulfonylsulfilimines, the conjugation is almost unaffected within large ranges of bond-rotation angles, which amounts to rotation-independent conjugation. On the basis of the indications of earlier, limited studies using only minimal basis set and no geometry optimization, in the more extensive present study Density Functional Theory B3LYP calculations using 6-31G basis set provide more reliable evidence for such flexible conjugation in some sulfur compounds and give an explanation for the experimentally observed interconversion of chiral conformers of N-sulfonylsulfilimines.     

The instability of the planar structure of carbanion ⊖:CH2-CN

Ab initio SCF calculations using uniform quality extended basis set supplemented with polarization functions predict a slightly pyramidal carbanion centre in :CH₂-CN. This finding is in contrast to the usual finding of planar geometry of carbanion centres generated next to other conjugative groups. Although the predicted barrier to pyramidal inversion is very small (0.1 kcal/mole) it is estimated that correlation energy contributions, neglected in any SCF calculations, may be too small to remove the barrier. The present results confirm earlier experimental findings that counter-ion and solvent effects can have a dominant role in determining the geometry of this unusual ion in actual chemical systems.     

The topology of energy hypersurfaces IV. Generator sets for the fundamental group of reaction mechanisms and the complete set of reaction paths

A countable set of distinguished fundamental reaction mechanisms on a potential surface serves as the set of generators for the fundamental group of reaction mechanisms. The effects of a change in the upper limit for energy on such groups are described with the aid of a lower semilattice, introduced into the family of all fundamental groups of reaction mechanisms, supported by the given potential energy surface. The algebraic structure of all reaction paths is described with the aid of groupoids and various subgroupoids and semigroups derived from them.     

Rules on chiral and achiral molecular transformations. II

The properties of chiral and achiral transformations between mirror images of labeled, partially labeled and unlabeledn-dimensional point sets are investigated. Mislow's Label Paradox of three-dimensional chirality-preserving and chirality-abandoning molecular transformations of tetrahedra is generalized to simplexes of all higher dimensionsn, and a sufficient and necessary partial labeling condition is given for fully chiral interconversion paths of mirror images of chiraln-dimensional simplexes.     

Theoretical studies on “acetylenic zipper” reaction intermediates

Nonempirical molecular orbital studies on a series of isomeric octyn-1-ols indicated that the anomalous stability of the alkoxide of 3-octyn-1-ol isomer is probably related to stereochemical and polarization properties of the molecule. The calculations correlated with the experimental observation that the least stable isomer should be the terminal alkyne, 7-octyn-1-ol.     

Ab initio calculations on sulfur-containing compounds. I. Uniform quality basis sets for sulfur: Total energies and geometries of H2S

Uniform quality basis sets (UQ-NG ; N=3, 4, 5), with s = p and s ≠ p, and a 6-31 G^* basis set have been optimized for the sulfur atom. These uniform quality basis sets in their uncontracted and contracted forms were used, together with other basis sets reported in the literature (a total of 40 basis sets), to study their accuracy in predicting the bond length and bond angle of H₂S.