Chiral hide-and-seek: retention of enantiomorphism in laser-induced nucleation of molten sodium chlorate

We report the observation of non-photochemical laser-induced nucleation (NPLIN) of sodium chlorate from its melt using nanosecond pulses of light at 1064 nm. The fraction of samples that nucleate is shown to depend linearly on the peak power density of the laser pulses. Remarkably, we observe that most samples are nucleated by the laser back into the enantiomorph (dextrorotatory or levorotatory) of the solid prior to melting. We do not observe a significant dependence on polarization of the light, and we put forward symmetry arguments that rule out an optical Kerr effect mechanism. Our observations of retention of chirality can be explained by decomposition of small amounts of the sodium chlorate to form sodium chloride, which provide cavities for retention of clusters of sodium chlorate even 18 °C above the melting point. These clusters remain sub-critical on cooling, but can be activated by NPLIN via an isotropic polarizability mechanism. We have developed a heterogeneous model of NPLIN in cavities, which reproduces the experimental data using simple physical data available for sodium chlorate.     

Macromolecular nucleation

The rate-determining step of crystallization of macromolecules from melt and solution is shown to be molecular nucleation. Molecular nucleation is described by using classical nucleation theory. Good agreement is found between the molecular nucleus size and the critical length of the rejected species. Molecular nucleation has a higher free-energy barrier than secondary nucleation; it might thus lead initially to independent patches of each molecule on the crystal surface. A possible reason for secondary nucleation on extended surfaces is suggested.     

Argon nucleation in a cryogenic nucleation pulse chamber

Homogeneous nucleation of argon droplets has been measured with a newly designed cryogenic nucleation pulse chamber presented already in a previous paper [Fladerer and Strey, J. Chem. Phys. 124, 16 (2006)]. Here we present the first systematic nucleation onset data for argon measured in a temperature range from 42 to 58 K and for vapor pressures from 0.3 to 10 kPa. For these data we provide an analytical fit function. From the geometry of the optical detection system and the time of nucleation the experimental nucleation-rate range can be estimated. This allows a comparison of the data with the predictions of classical nucleation theory. We found 16-26 orders of magnitude difference between theory and experiment, and a too strong theoretical dependence of the nucleation rate on temperature. A comparison with the self-consistent theory of Girshick and Chiu [J. Chem. Phys. 93, 1273 (1990)] showed improved temperature dependence but still discrepancies of 11-17 orders of magnitude compared to experimental data. The thermodynamically consistent theory of Kashchiev [J. Chem. Phys. 118, 1837 (2003)] was found to agree rather well with experiment in respect to the temperature dependence and to predict rates about 5-7 orders of magnitude below the experimental ones. With the help of the Gibbs-Thomson equation we were able to evaluate the size of the critical nucleus to be 40-80 argon atoms.     

Multicomponent nucleation: thermodynamically consistent description of the nucleation work

A thermodynamically consistent formula is derived for the nucleation work in multicomponent homogeneous nucleation. The derivation relies on the conservative dividing surface which defines the nucleus as having specific surface energy equal to the specific surface energy sigma0 of the interface between the macroscopically large new and old phases at coexistence. Expressions are given for the radius of the nucleus defined by the conservative dividing surface and by the surface of tension. As a side result, the curvature dependence of the surface tension sigmaT of the nucleus defined by the surface of tension is also determined. The analysis is valid for nuclei of any size, i.e., for nucleation in the whole range of conditions between the binodal and the spinodal of the metastable old phase provided the inequality sigmaT < or = sigma0 is satisfied. It is found that under the conditions of validity of the analysis the nucleation rate is higher than the nucleation rate given by the classical nucleation theory. The general results are applied to nucleation of unary liquids or solids in binary gaseous, liquid or solid mixtures.     

Heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation compared: rapid nucleation on microscopic impurities

We use computer simulation to calculate the rates of both homogeneous nucleation and heterogeneous nucleation on microscopic impurities. We do so in perhaps the simplest model of fluids and magnets: the two-dimensional Ising model. We expect our results to be qualitatively applicable to many simple and complex fluids. We find that heterogeneous nucleation on an impurity that is not only microscopic but also as small as possible, that is, a single fixed spin, is more than four orders of magnitude faster than homogeneous nucleation. The rate of heterogeneous nucleation then increases by a factor of approximately five for each additional fixed spin in the impurity. These results suggest that impurities as small as single molecules can result in homogeneous nucleation being irrelevant due to heterogeneous nucleation on these microscopic impurities being much faster.     

A ternary nucleation model for the nucleation pathway of protein folding

Recently [Y. S. Djikaev and E. Ruckenstein, J. Phys. Chem. B 111, 886 (2007)], the authors proposed a kinetic model for the nucleation mechanism of protein folding where a protein was modeled as a heteropolymer consisting of hydrophobic and hydrophilic beads and the composition of the growing cluster of protein residues was assumed to be constant and equal to the overall protein composition. Here, they further develop the model by considering a protein as a three-component heteropolymer and by allowing the composition of the growing cluster of protein residues to vary independently of the overall one. All the bonds in the heteropolymer (now consisting of hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and neutral beads) have the same constant length, and all the bond angles are equal and fixed. As a crucial idea of the model, an overall potential around the cluster wherein a residue performs a chaotic motion is considered to be a combination of the average dihedral and average pairwise potentials assigned to the bead. The overall potential as a function of the distance from the cluster center has a double well shape which allows one to determine its emission and absorption rates by using a first passage time analysis. Knowing these rates as functions of three independent variables of a ternary cluster, one can develop a self-consistent kinetic theory for the nucleation mechanism of folding of a protein using a ternary nucleation formalism and evaluate the size and composition of the nucleus and the protein folding time. As an illustration, the model is applied to the folding of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease consisting of 124 amino acids whereof 40 are hydrophobic, 81 hydrophilic, and 3 neutral. With a reasonable choice of diffusion coefficients of the residues in the native state and potential parameters, the model predicts folding times in the range of 1-100 s.     

Electrochemical nucleation: comparison test of classical and atomistic nucleation models

Classical and atomistic nucleation models have been tested in several aqueous systems dealing with electrocrystallisation. A lot of reported experimental nucleation data have been used and in a wide range of overpotentials. The critical nucleus size has been calculated in those cases not reported in the original work, and the results obtained with the classical and atomistic models have been tabulated, compared and discussed. Small values for the critical nucleus size occur in most of the systems.     

On Chiral Space Groups and Chiral Molecules

This note explains the relationship (as well as the absence of a relationship) between chiral space groups and chiral molecules (which have absolute configurations).For a chiral molecule,which must crystallize in a chiral space group,the outcome of the absolute configuration determination must be linked to some other properties of the chiral crystal such as its optical activity for the observation to the relevant.     

16种手性化合物在不同自制手性固定相上的拆分比较

采用高效液相色谱法,在自制的纤维素-三(3,5-二甲基苯基氨基甲酸酯)(ATEO-OD)、纤维素-三(4-甲基苯基氨基甲酸酯)(ATEO-OG)和纤维素-三(4-甲基苯基甲酸酯)(ATEO-OJ)3种手性柱上对16种不同结构的手性化合物进行了拆分和比较.试验结果表明:16个手性样品在这3种手性固定相上分别获得了不同程度的拆分,A TEO-OD对所分析样品具有更好的手性识别能力,ATEO-OG和ATEO-OJ的手性识别能力相当.     

Mean-field kinetic nucleation theory

A new semiphenomenological model of homogeneous vapor-liquid nucleation is proposed in which the cluster kinetics follows the "kinetic approach to nucleation" and the thermodynamic part is based on the revised Fisher droplet model with the mean-field argument for the cluster configuration integral. The theory is nonperturbative in a cluster size and as such is valid for all clusters down to monomers. It contains two surface tensions: macroscopic (planar) and microscopic. The latter is a temperature dependent quantity related to the vapor compressibility factor at saturation. For Lennard-Jones fluids the microscopic surface tension possesses a universal behavior with the parameters found from the mean-field density functional calculations. The theory is verified against nucleation experiments for argon, nitrogen, water, and mercury, demonstrating very good agreement with experimental data. Classical nucleation theory fails to predict experimental results when a critical cluster becomes small.     

Chiral fluorophosphonomethylbenzaldehydes

Russian Journal of General Chemistry -     

Chiral phosphonohydroxymethylbenzaldehydes

Russian Journal of General Chemistry -     

The Practical Asymmetric Syntheses of Key Chiral Intermediates of Chiral Drug from Four-Carbon Chiral Pool

(S)-or (R)-2-Amino-4-phenylbutyric acid and (S)-or (R)-2-hydroxy-4-phenylbutyric acid and their ethyl esters are key chiral intermediates for the preparation of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) and other chiral drugs. Their practically asymmetric synthetic methods in large scale from four-carbon chiral pool, commercially available L-aspartic acid and L-malic acid, will be presented (as scheme). (S)-2-Amino-4-phenylbutyric acid and its ethyl ester hydrochloride were prepared from the easily available L-aspartic acid via activation by forming anhydride hydrochloride, Friedel-Crafts reaction with benzene, hydrogenolysis and esterification with ethanol in the presence of thionyl chloride in overall yield of 80% and 73.6% respectively with 99% ee. We first used amino acid anhydride hydrochloride as the acylating agent in Friedel-Crafts reaction without racemization. [1]     

手性化合物

手性问题与我们的生活密切相关，它涉及到生命、动植物、药物、食品、香料、农药等诸多领域，本文介绍了手性化合物的一些性质、手性药物、手性化合物的拆分、尤其是手性化合物的现代色谱分离方法。