Recovery revisited

During the last decade, various IUPAC documents have presented concepts related to the important ability of a measurement procedure to provide correct quantity values for amount, concentration, or content of a component in a system. The measurement procedure often, but not necessarily, includes one or more separation steps prior to the final instrumental reading. The vocabularies present concepts with some definitions and terms that disagree or are ambiguous, mostly revolving around the term recovery and its derivatives. The present proposal consists in defining three concepts with the terms actual quantity, initially estimated quantity, and recovered quantity ratio, where quantity is used in the metrological sense of the international vocabulary of basic and general terms in metrology (BIPM, IEC, IFCC, ILAC, ISO, IUPAC, IUPAP, OIML International vocabulary of basic and general terms in metrology, draft, 3rd edn. BIPM, Sèvres, 2005), not as a synonym of amount.

Covalent radii revisited

A new set of covalent atomic radii has been deduced from crystallographic data for most of the elements with atomic numbers up to 96. The proposed radii show a well behaved periodic dependence that allows us to interpolate a few radii for elements for which structural data is lacking, notably the noble gases. The proposed set of radii therefore fills most of the gaps and solves some inconsistencies in currently used covalent radii. The transition metal and lanthanide contractions as well as the differences in covalent atomic radii between low spin and high spin configurations in transition metals are illustrated by the proposed radii set.     

Zirconium tetrachloride revisited

Zirconium tetrachloride, ZrCl₄, is a strategic material with wide‐ranging applications. Until now, only one crystallographic study on ZrCl₄ has been reported [Krebs (1970). Z. Anorg. Allg. Chem. 378 , 263–272] and that was more than 40 years ago. The compound used for the previous determination was prepared from ZrO₂ and Cl₂–CCl₄, and single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction (SCXRD) studies on ZrCl₄ obtained from Zr metal have not yet been reported. In this context, we prepared ZrCl₄ from the reaction of Zr metal and Cl₂ gas in a sealed tube and investigated its structure at 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 K. At 300 K, the SCXRD analysis indicates that ZrCl₄ crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pca2₁ [a = 6.262 (9), b = 7.402 (11), c = 12.039 (17) Å, and V = 558.0 (14) ų] and consists of infinite zigzag chains of edge‐sharing ZrCl₆ octahedra. This chain motif is similar to that observed previously in ZrCl₄, but the structural parameters and space group differ. In the temperature range 100–300 K, no phase transformation was identified, while elongation of intra‐chain Zr…Zr [3.950 (1) Å at 100 K and 3.968 (5) Å at 300 K] and inter‐chain Cl…Cl [3.630 (3) Å at 100 K and 3.687 (9) Å at 300 K] distances occurred.     

Fournier polarography revisited

A theory for Fournier polarography and higher order harmonics is presented. This is valid for reversible systems under semi-infinite diffusion to stationary and expanding plane electrodes. The algorithm is simple, accurate and exploits the identities holding for the interfacial concentrations. The computations — minimal in nature — can be carried out easily and the results given here were evaluated taking into account the presence of harmonics to, at least, the twenty-fifth order.     

Trimethylsilylcellulose synthesis revisited

A simplification of the overall method of producing trimethylsilylcellulose solutions in common organic volatile solvents is reported. Microcrystalline cellulose was derivatized aiming its solubilization in tetrahydrofuran and toluene to obtain ultra-thin films of cellulose by spin-coating. The main simplifications are: 1) elimination of a swelling step before dissolution in the binary solvent N,N-dimethylacetamide/LiCl by using microcrystalline cellulose; 2) derivatization of cellulose –OH groups with –Si(CH₃)₃ groups was successful with no additional catalyst, like trimethylsilyl chloride, the degree of substitution (DS) being 2.2 ± 0.1. The DS at the extreme surface of the films was computed from the X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy data: using solely C 1s fitted component areas and, alternatively, from both C 1s and Si 2p areas. The DS estimated with a technique specific of the surface is close to the bulky one obtained from gravimetric measurements reported in the literature for materials synthesized with catalyst. The topographic uniformity is shown by Atomic Force Microscopy.     

Channel spectra revisited

A new method is described for eliminating channel spectra from data obtained with a high resolution Fourier transform spectrometer.     

Cysteine conformations revisited

Based on the B3LYP and MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ calculations, 51 cysteine conformers were found to be stable in the gas phase. The calculations were repeated for the most stable eight structures by using the aug-cc-pVTZ basis set. To estimate the influence of water on the cysteine conformation, the IEF-PCM/B3LYP/aug-cc-pVDZ calculations were carried out and showed 44 neutral and 12 zwitterion conformers to be stable in the water solution. The most stable cysteine structure in water appeared to be the zwitterionic conformer quite similar to the molecule observed in the crystal state.     

Liquid-crystalline phthalocyanines revisited

A Commentary on the paper ”Homologous series of liquid‐crystalline metal free and copper octa‐n‐alkoxyphthalocyanines?, by J. F. van der Pol, E. Neeleman, J. W. Zwikker, R. J. M. Nolte, W. Drenth, J. Aerts, R. Visser and S. J. Picken. First published in Liquid Crystals, 6, 577‐592 (1989).     

Allycyanide gauche revisited

The microwave spectrum of the ground state of the gauche rotamer of allylcyanide (CH₂=CHCH₂ CN) has been remeasured. The obtained rotational constants A = 19 707.9 ± 0.1, B = 2 619.74 ± 0.05 and C = 2 497.43 ± 0.05 (in MHz) were in good agreement with a structural model. The dipole moment components were also fitted as |μ_a| = 3.50 ± 0.05, |μ_b| = 1.70 ± 0.02 and |μ_c| = 0.19 ± 0.04 (in Debye). The results are in both cases in good agreement with a CCCC dihedral angle near the expected 120°.     

Protonated acetylene revisited

The potential energy surface for protonated acetylene has been re-examined with large basis sets and highly correlated methods. The energy difference of 3.6–3.8 kcal/mol between the classical structure and non-classical (bridged) structure computed with CCSD (T)/cc-pVQZ, CCSD(T)/6-311+G(3df,2pd), BD(T)/cc- pVQZ, BD(T)/6-311+G(3df,2pd) and CBS-APNO methods is in very good agreement with the best previous calculations, 3.7–4.0 kcal/mol. In contrast, BLYP, B3LYP, PW91, PBE and TPSS density functional methods do rather poorly, yielding −0.52. 0.29, 1.81, 2.16 and 0.62 kcal/mol, respectively, with the 6-311+G(3df,2pd) basis. MP2 calculations predict the classical structure to be a transition state; however, frequency calculations at the CCSD/6-311+G(3df,2pd) level of theory show that the classical structure is a local minimum. CCSD(T), BD(T) and CBS-APNO energy calculations along the MP2/6-311+G(3df,2pd) reaction path indicate that the classical structure is a shallow local minimum separated from the non-classical structure by a very small barrier of 0.11–0.13 kcal/mol. Because the barrier for proton exchange between the non-classical isomers via the classical structure is broad and nearly flat at the top, the tunneling splitting should be reduced, possibly accounting for the 15% difference between the calculated and experimental barrier heights. Contribution to the Fernando Bernardi Memorial Issue.     

Tricopper - revisited

Previously reported spectral data for matrix-isolated Cu₃ are interpreted in terms of a dynamic Jahn-Teller molecule whose ground-state potential surface is taken to be almost without barrier to pseudorotation. Good agreement is found between observed and calculated vibronic eigenstate energies assuming a symmetric stretching frequency of 354 cm⁻¹, a vibronic frequency of 50 cm⁻¹ and a pseudorotation constant of 4.5 cm⁻¹.     

End-evaporation dynamics revisited

We present analytical results on the so-called end-evaporation kinetics in equilibrium polymeric systems following a temperature jump (T jump). A T jump prepares the system with a nonequilibrium length distribution, after which it relaxes back to its equilibrium state. Starting from a master equation, we develop a mean-field analytical theory based on a generating function approach, which allows explicit approximate expressions for the monomer and dimer concentrations to be derived in a discrete setting; the concentrations of the other chains as well as the average chain length were shown to be entirely expressible in terms of the monomer and dimer concentrations. We find that the calculated monomer and dimer concentrations as well as the average chain length are in good agreement with numerical simulation results and do not suffer from some of the defects of earlier continuum theories. Furthermore, the relaxation was shown to take place in three different stages. The first stage comprises the very fast relaxation of the monomers to almost their equilibrium concentration; the other polymer chains have hardly relaxed. During the second stage, which is highly nonlinear, a redistribution of material at practically constant monomer density takes place. Only in the final stage of the relaxation process the chain concentrations approach their true equilibrium values. In this stage there are only very small shifts in the concentrations of chains, which are governed by extremely slow "indirect" monomer-mediated processes.     

Hewitt reaction revisited

A range of alkyl phenylphosphonites are prepared from the reaction of phenylphosphinic acid with the corresponding alkyl chloroformates. A mechanism for this reaction is proposed.     

Liquid-crystalline phthalocyanines revisited

A Commentary on the paper “Homologous series of liquid-crystalline metal free and copper octa-n-alkoxyphthalocyanines„, by J. F. van der Pol, E. Neeleman, J. W. Zwikker, R. J. M. Nolte, W. Drenth, J. Aerts, R. Visser and S. J. Picken. First published in Liquid Crystals, 6, 577-592 (1989).