High magnification microscopic system focusing on transparent liquid/liquid interface formed in thin-layer two-phase microcell.

A thin-layer two-phase microcell was fabricated without an adhesive, which showed no fluorescence and resisted acids. The lower hollow of the microcell was thin (0.18 mm), which was in the range of the working distance of the used objective of high magnification (60x) and high numerical aperture (1.2). A reflection method using probe light was newly employed for focusing the objective on a transparent dodecane/water interface strictly with an inverted microscope. The system was applied to in situ fluorescence microscopic measurements of the dynamics of single DNA molecules (165600 base pairs) at the dodecane/water interface.     

Synthesis of amidocrownophanes with 27‐ and 28‐membered rings and their molecular recognition toward urea and its derivatives

Novel crownophanes with 27‐ and 28‐membered rings having two hydroxyl groups, two amide groups, and aromatic moieties such as naphthalene, pyridine, and phenyl rings were successfully synthesized by a one‐step reaction from the corresponding macrocyclic polyethers via “tandem Claisen rearrengement” in moderate yields. They can solubilize urea and its derivatives into chloroform solution, while the corresponding macrocyclic polyethers do not solubilize them. According to NMR studies, crownophanes 1 and 2 interact with urea and its derivatives forming 1:1 complexes.     

Initial mode of radical pair formation in n-hydrocarbons irradiated at 1.5 and 4.2 K

The ESR spectra of X-irradiated (at 1.5 and 4.2 K) single crystals of n-decane-d₂₂, n-decane-h₂₂ and their mixtures have been measured at 1.5 and 4.2 K. It is concluded that almost all alkyl radicals are inherently formed in pairs in a fairly random fashion and that the spacial distribution of the radicals depends on the irradiation temperatures. In the crystal of n-decane-d₂₂, a 1,3-carbon intrachain radical pair is identified together with a number of very close interchain pairs which are formed between almost all kinds of the first neighboring chains. The crystal of n-decane-h₂₂ gives considerably larger spacial distribution of radicals, indicating a remarkable mass effect on the radical pair formation.     

Theoretical study of the Cp2Zr-catalyzed hydrosilylation of ethylene. Reaction mechanism including new sigma-bond activation

The Cp(2)Zr-catalyzed hydrosilylation of ethylene was theoretically investigated with DFT and MP2-MP4(SDQ) methods, to clarify the reaction mechanism and the characteristic features of this reaction. Although ethylene insertion into the Zr-SiH(3) bond of Cp(2)Zr(H)(SiH(3)) needs a very large activation barrier of 41.0 (42.3) kcal/mol, ethylene is easily inserted into the Zr-H bond with a very small activation barrier of 2.1 (2.8) kcal/mol, where the activation barrier and the energy of reaction calculated with the DFT(B3LYP) method are given and in parentheses are those values which have been corrected for the zero-point energy, hereafter. Not only this ethylene insertion reaction but also the coupling reaction between Cp(2)Zr(C(2)H(4)) and SiH(4) easily takes place to afford Cp(2)Zr(H)(CH(2)CH(2)SiH(3)) and Cp(2)Zr(CH(2)CH(3))(SiH(3)) with activation barriers of 0.3 (0.7) and 5.0 (5.4) kcal/mol, respectively. This coupling reaction involves a new type of Si-H sigma-bond activation which is similar to metathesis. The important interaction in the coupling reaction is the bonding overlap between the d(pi)-pi bonding orbital of Cp(2)Zr(C(2)H(4)) and the Si-H sigma orbital. The final step is neither direct C-H nor Si-C reductive elimination, because both reductive eliminations occur with a very large activation barrier and significantly large endothermicity. This is because the d orbital of Cp(2)Zr is at a high energy. On the other hand, ethylene-assisted C-H reductive elimination easily occurs with a small activation barrier, 5.0 (7.5) kcal/mol, and considerably large exothermicity, -10.6 (-7.1) kcal/mol. Also, ethylene-assisted Si-C reductive elimination and metatheses of Cp(2)Zr(H)(CH(2)CH(2)SiH(3)) and Cp(2)Zr(CH(2)CH(3))(SiH(3)) with SiH(4) take place with moderate activation barriers, 26.5 (30.7), 18.4 (20.5), and 28.3 (31.5) kcal/mol, respectively. From these results, it is clearly concluded that the most favorable catalytic cycle of the Cp(2)Zr-catalyzed hydrosilylation of ethylene consists of the coupling reaction of Cp(2)Zr(C(2)H(4)) with SiH(4) followed by the ethylene-assisted C-H reductive elimination.     

Electron spin relaxation of some alkane cation radicals as an indicator of dynamics between the distorted structures

ESR saturation phenomenon was observed for various alkane cation radicals derived from cyclohexane, propane and norbornane in frozen halocarbon matrices at 4 K. In addition to spectral diffusion by spin-spin interaction between the radicals, which is a common mechanism of ESR relaxation in the solid state, isotropic hyperfine modulation by the dynamics between the equivalent distorted structures was found to be very important for those centers which show Jahn-Teller (JT) or pseudo-JT effects. The effect of annealing of the sample at 77 K is also discussed.     

Conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy using a CAMAC data acquisition system (KODAQ)

For simple depth selective conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) by using a He+CH₄ proportional counter, a flexible and versatile CAMAC data acquisition system (KODAQ) which works on a popular Japanese personal computer PC9801VX (NEC) was applied. It is demonstrated that CEM spectra of the oxidized Fe thin film which is composed of Fe₃O₄, Fe_1–xO and -Fe metal are successfully obtained.     

Preparation and separation of all possible rotamers of a stereochemical analog of meso-tartaric acid: optically inactive and optically active isomers of (R,S)-2,2′-bis(methoxycarbonyl)-6,6′-dimethyl-9,9′-bitriptycyl

All the three possible rotamers of the title compound were separated by chromatography, and unambiguously identified by NMR and X-ray analysis. One of the isomers was optically inactive C_i conformation. The other optical active forms were resolved to give a pair of enantiomers, which were characterized by optical rotation and CD spectra. Thus the optical inactivity of a compound such as meso-tartaric acid that can take C_i conformation in solution, is now ascribed to that the molecule has an optically inactive C_i conformer and equal amounts of optically active conformers, that are enantiomers, in solution.     

Synthesis of chiral [5]helicenes using aromatic oxy-Cope rearrangement as a key step

Both enantiomers of (P)-(+)-2- and (M)-(−)-2-acetoxy-11,14-dimethyl[5]helicenes 8 were synthesized by asymmetric aromatic oxy-Cope rearrangement of the corresponding chiral bridged bicyclic compounds, which were obtained by enzymatic resolution. The absolute configurations of 8 were assigned by their circular dichroism spectra.