Hyperfine fields at the Li site in LiFePO(4)-type olivine materials for lithium rechargeable batteries: a (7)Li MAS NMR and SQUID study

The (7)Li NMR isotropic shift for olivine LiMPO(4) (M = Fe, Mn, Co, Ni) is assigned to hyperfine coupling between the (7)Li nucleus and the transition metal unpaired electrons on the basis of the Curie-Weiss temperature dependence of the shift. The hyperfine shift arises from a linear combination of Li-O-M through-bond interactions wherein the unpaired A' electrons contribute a negative shift and the unpaired A' ' electrons contribute a positive shift. The hyperfine coupling constant is determined for each composition.     

THEORETICAL STUDY OF COLOR CONTROL MECHANISM IN RETINAL PROTEINS. I. ROLE OF THE TRYPTOPHAN RESIDUE, TYROSINE RESIDUE and WATER MOLECULE

Abstract –We calculated the opsin shift due to the electrostatic interaction between tryptophan or tyrosine residues and the chromophore by the perturbation method for various mutual configurations. The obtained opsin shift maps for these configurations demonstrated that when the above residues reside around the ionone ring side, the positive opsin shift (bathochromic shift) is obtained, and when they reside around the Schiff-base side, the negative opsin shift (hypsochromic shift) is obtained. These properties hold true, irrespective of the orientation of those residues, indicating that higher order multipoles of the group play a central role. The maximum value of the opsin shift by these groups amounts to several hundred wavenumbers. These results indicate that the location of some of those amino acid residues at proper positions around the chromophore can cause a considerable opsin shift. We also calculated opsin shift maps for the various mutual configurations between a water molecule and the chromophore for comparison.     

THEORETICAL STUDY OF COLOR CONTROL MECHANISM IN RETINAL PROTEINS.: I. ROLE OF THE TRYPTOPHAN RESIDUE, TYROSINE RESIDUE AND WATER MOLECULE

Abstract: We calculated the opsin shift due to the electrostatic interaction between tryptophan or tyrosine residues and the chromophore by the perturbation method for various mutual configurations. The obtained opsin shift maps for these configurations demonstrated that when the above residues reside around the ionone ring side, the positive opsin shift (bathochromic shift) is obtained, and when they reside around the Schiff-base side, the negative opsin shift (hypsochromic shift) is obtained. These properties hold true, irrespective of the orientation of those residues, indicating that higher order multipoles of the group play a central role. The maximum value of the opsin shift by these groups amounts to several hundred wavenumbers. These results indicate that the location of some of those amino acid residues at proper positions around the chromophore can cause a considerable opsin shift. We also calculated opsin shift maps for the various mutual configurations between a water molecule and the chromophore for comparison.     

Carbon nanotube detectors for microchip CE: comparative study of single-wall and multiwall carbon nanotube, and graphite powder films on glassy carbon, gold, and platinum electrode surfaces

The performance of microchip electrophoresis/electrochemistry system with carbon nanotube (CNT) film electrodes was studied. Electrocatalytic activities of different carbon materials (single-wall CNT (SWCNT), multiwall CNT (MWCNT), carbon powder) cast on different electrode substrates (glassy carbon (GC), gold, and platinum) were compared in a microfluidic setup and their performance as microchip electrochemical detectors was assessed. An MWCNT film on a GC electrode shows electrocatalytic effect toward oxidation of dopamine (E(1/2) shift of 0.09 V) and catechol (E(1/2) shift of 0.19 V) when compared to a bare GC electrode, while other CNT/carbon powder films on the GC electrode display negligible effects. Modification of a gold electrode by graphite powder results in a strong electrocatalytic effect toward oxidation of dopamine and catechol (E(1/2) shift of 0.14 and 0.11 V, respectively). A significant shift of the half-wave potentials to lower values also provide the MWCNT film (E(1/2) shift of 0.08 and 0.08 V for dopamine and catechol, respectively) and the SWCNT film (E(1/2) shift of 0.10 V for catechol) when compared to a bare gold electrode. A microfluidic device with a CNT film-modified detection electrode displays greatly improved separation resolution (R(s)) by a factor of two compared to a bare electrode, reflecting the electrocatalytic activity of CNT.     

Expeditious construction of a carbobicyclic skeleton via sp3-C-H functionalization: hydride shift from an aliphatic tertiary position in an internal redox process

Described herein is the first example of an aliphatic, nonbenzylic hydride shift/cyclization sequence that contains two types of novel sp(3)-C-H functionalization: (1) construction of a tetraline skeleton via [1,5]-hydride shift/cyclization and (2) [1,6]-hydride shift/cyclization to form a five-membered ring (indane derivatives).     

Near-infrared absorption in symmetric squarylium and croconate dyes: a comparative study using symmetry-adapted cluster-configuration interaction methods

Symmetric croconate (CR) and squarylium dyes (SQ) are well-known near-infrared (NIR) dyes and, in general, are considered to be donor-acceptor-donor type molecules. It is established in the literature that CR dyes absorb in a longer wavelength region than the corresponding SQ dyes. This has been attributed to the CR ring being a better acceptor than the SQ ring. Thus increasing the donor capacity should lead to a bathochromic shift in both SQ and CR. On the other hand, some experiments reported in the literature have revealed that increasing the conjugation in the donor part of the SQ molecule leads first to red shift, which upon a further increase of the conjugation changes to a blue shift. Hence, to understand the role of the central ring and the substitutions in the absorption of these dyes, we carried out high-level symmetry-adapted cluster-configuration interaction (SAC-CI) calculations of some substituted SQ and CR dyes and compare the absorption energy with the existing experimental data. We found that there is very good agreement. We also carried out SAC-CI calculations of some smaller model molecules, which contain the main oxyallyl substructure. We varied the geometry (angle) of the oxyallyl subgroup and the substitution in these model molecules to establish a correlation with the bathochromic shift. We found that the charge transfer is very small and does not play the key role in the red shift, but on the other hand, the perturbation of the HOMO-LUMO gap (HLG) from both the geometry and substitution seems to be responsible for this shift. We suggest as a design principle that increasing the donor capacity of the groups may not help in the red shift, but introducing groups which perturb the HLG and decrease it without changing the MO character should lead to a larger bathochromic shift.     

Determination of calpha chemical shift tensor orientation in peptides by dipolar-modulated chemical shift recoupling NMR spectroscopy

We present a new method for determining the orientation of chemical shift tensors in polycrystalline solids with site resolution and demonstrate its application to the determination of the Calpha chemical shift tensor orientation in a model peptide with beta-sheet torsion angles. The tensor orientation is obtained under magic angle spinning by modulating a recoupled chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) pattern with various dipolar couplings. These dipolar-modulated chemical shift patterns constitute the indirect dimension of a 2D spectrum and are resolved according to the isotropic chemical shifts of different sites in the direct dimension. These dipolar-modulated CSA spectra are equivalent to the projection of a 2D static separated-local-field spectrum onto its chemical shift dimension, except that its dipolar dimension is multiplied with a modulation function. Both (13)C-(1)H and (13)C-(15)N dipolar couplings can modulate the CSA spectra of the Calpha site in an amino acid and yield the relative orientations of the chemical shift principal axes to the C-H and C-N bonds. We demonstrate the C-H and C-N modulated CSA experiments on methylmalonic acid and N-tBoc-glycine, respectively. The MAS results agree well with the results of the 2D separated-local-field spectra, thus confirming the validity of this MAS dipolar-modulation approach. Using this technique, we measured the Val Calpha tensor orientation in N-acetylvaline, which has beta-sheet torsion angles. The sigma(11) axis is oriented at 158 degrees (or 22 degrees) from the C-H bond, while the sigma(22) axis is tilted by 144 degrees (or 36 degrees) from the C-N bond. Both the orientations and the magnitude of this chemical shift tensor are in excellent agreement with quantum chemical calculations.     

Infrared spectroscopic investigation of poly(2-methoxyethyl vinyl ether) during thermosensitive phase separation in water

Hydration changes of poly(2-methoxyethyl vinyl ether) (PMOVE) synthesized via living cationic polymerization have been investigated during a temperature-responsive phase separation in water by using infrared spectroscopy. An aqueous PMOVE solution has lower critical solution temperatures (LCSTs) of 66 degrees C in H2O and 65 degrees C in D2O at approximately 15 wt %. During phase separation, the C-H stretching (nu(C-H)) bands of PMOVE shift downward (red shift). In particular, the IR band assigned to the antisymmetric stretching vibration of the terminal methyl groups exhibits a remarkably large red shift by 16 cm-1. The band also exhibits a red shift with increasing polymer concentration at T < Tp. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the models of hydrated PMOVE indicate that the shift is due mainly to the breaking of hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) between the oxygen of the methoxy groups and water and partially to the breaking of the CH...O H-bond to them.     

Pseudomultidimensional NMR by spin-state selective off-resonance decoupling

An alternate technique for accurately monitoring the chemical shift in multidimensional NMR experiments using spin-state selective off-resonance decoupling is presented here. By applying off-resonance decoupling on spin S during acquisition of spin I, we scaled the scalar coupling J(I,S) between the spins, and the residual scalar coupling turns out to be a function of the chemical shift of spin S. Thus, the chemical shift information of spin S is indirectly retained, without an additional evolution period and the accompanying polarization transfer elements. The detection of the components of the doublet using spin-state selection enables an accurate measurement of the residual scalar coupling and a precise value for the chemical shift, concomitantly. The spin-state selection further yields two subspectra comprising either one of the two components of the doublet and thereby avoiding the overlap problems that arise from off-resonance decoupling. In general, spin-state selective off-resonance decoupling can be incorporated into any pulse sequence. Here, the concept of spin-state selective off-resonance decoupling is applied to 3D (13)C or (15)N-resolved [(1)H,(1)H]-NOESY experiments, adding the chemical shift of the heavy atom attached to the hydrogen ((13)C or (15)N nuclei) with high resolution resulting in a pseudo-4D. These pseudo-4D heavy-atom resolved [(1)H, (1)H]-NOESY experiments contain chemical shift information comparable to that of 4D (13)C or (15)N-resolved [(1)H,(1)H]-NOESY, but with an increase in chemical shift resolution by 1-2 orders of magnitude.     

A novel palladium(0) catalysed tandem 1,3-allyl shift and Heck arylation

On treatment with Pd(PPh₃)₄ allyl vinyl ether (1) undergoes a Pd(0) catalysed 1,3 oxygen to carbon allyl shift to afford -allyl ketone (2). In the presence of both Pd(PPh₃)₄ and base the allyl vinyl ether undergoes a Pd(0) catalysed tandem 1,3 allyl shift and intramolecular Heck arylation to give the spiro indane (3). Mechanistic investigations suggest that the 1,3-allyl shift proceeds via a π-allyl palladium intermediate.     

Increasing the Chemical‐Shift Dispersion of Unstructured Proteins with a Covalent Lanthanide Shift Reagent

The study of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) by NMR often suffers from highly overlapped resonances that prevent unambiguous chemical‐shift assignments, and data analysis that relies on well‐separated resonances. We present a covalent paramagnetic lanthanide‐binding tag (LBT) for increasing the chemical‐shift dispersion and facilitating the chemical‐shift assignment of challenging, repeat‐containing IDPs. Linkage of the DOTA‐based LBT to a cysteine residue induces pseudo‐contact shifts (PCS) for resonances more than 20 residues from the spin‐labeling site. This leads to increased chemical‐shift dispersion and decreased signal overlap, thereby greatly facilitating chemical‐shift assignment. This approach is applicable to IDPs of varying sizes and complexity, and is particularly helpful for repeat‐containing IDPs and low‐complexity regions. This results in improved efficiency for IDP analysis and binding studies.     

Separation of quadrupolar and chemical/paramagnetic shift interactions in two-dimensional 2H (I=1) nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

A novel two-dimensional (2)H (spin I=1) nuclear magnetic resonance technique is introduced for determination of both quadrupole and chemical/paramagnetic shift tensors and their relative orientation. The new method is based upon the well-known quadrupolar-echo experiment and is designed to refocus the quadrupolar interaction at the end of the t(1) evolution period while retaining the modulation introduced by the shift interaction. As a result, a projection of the resulting two-dimensional spectrum onto its F(1) dimension yields a shift anisotropy powder lineshape free from any quadrupolar broadening. The chemical/paramagnetic shifts appear in both F(1) and F(2) dimensions and are thus spread along a +1 frequency gradient; hence, a projection orthogonal to this gradient yields the pure quadrupolar powder lineshape, free from all shift interaction effects. The relative orientation of the quadrupole and shift tensors can be obtained by analysis of the full two-dimensional correlation lineshape. Unlike the well-known double-quantum experiment, the new method is, in principle, equally effective for all values of the quadrupolar splitting, including zero. The properties of the new technique are demonstrated using computer simulation and methods for the extraction of quadrupole and shift tensor parameters are described. The new technique is applied to (diamagnetic) benzoic acid-d(1) (C(6)H(5)CO(2)D) and (paramagnetic) copper(II) chloride dihydrate-d(4) (CuCl(2).2D(2)O).     

The vibrational Stokes shift of water (HOD in D2O)

The vibrational Stokes shift of the OH stretching transition nu(OH) of water is the shift between the ground-state absorption and the excited-state (v=1) emission. A recent measurement on HOD in D(2)O solvent [S. Woutersen and H. J. Bakker, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2077 (1999)] of a 70 cm(-1) redshift, and a subsequent calculation of a 57 cm(-1) redshift using equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations [C. P. Lawrence and J. L. Skinner, J. Chem. Phys. 117, 8847 (2002)] were in good agreement. We now report extensive measurements of the vibrational Stokes shift in HOD/D(2)O using an ultrafast IR pump, Raman probe method. The vibrational Stokes shift is seen to depend on the pump pulse frequency and on time delay; by varying these parameters it can be made to range from 112 to -32 cm(-1) (negative values indicate a blueshift in the excited state). The equilibrium vibrational Stokes shift is actually a negative rather than a positive quantity. Possible reasons for the disagreement between experiment and theory are briefly discussed.     

Competing sigmatropic shift rearrangements in excited allyl radicals

The competition between rearrangement of the excited allyl radical via a 1,3 sigmatropic shift versus sequential 1,2 shifts has been observed and characterized using isotopic substitution, laser excitation, and molecular beam techniques. Both rearrangements produce a 1-propenyl radical that subsequently dissociates to methyl plus acetylene. The 1,3 shift and 1,2 shift mechanisms are equally probable for CH(2)CHCH(2), whereas the 1,3 shift is favored by a factor of 1.6 in CH(2)CDCH(2). The translational energy distributions for the methyl and acetylene products of these two mechanisms are substantially different. Both of these allyl dissociation channels are minor pathways compared to hydrogen atom loss.     

Relaxations in poly(vinyl alcohol) and in poly(vinyl acetate) detected by fluorescence emission of 4-aminophthalimide and prodan

Steady-state and time-resolved emission spectroscopy (TRES) of the medium-sensitive probes 4-aminophthalimide (4-AP) and 6-propionyl-2-(dimethylamino)naphthalene (Prodan) were performed at 77 and 298 K in vacuum-sealed thin films of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc). The two probes show similar red-edge effect in steady state emission and a red shift with time in TRES in PVA. In PVAc the red shifts are much smaller and the spectral shift for 4-AP is slower. 4-AP locates in highly polar environments in PVA, where H-bond interaction with the polymer is important. Prodan locates in less polar environments, as evidenced by the position of the emission maximum with respect to reference solvents. Consequently, the observed monoexponential spectral red shift with time of 4-AP in PVA and in PVAc is attributed to relaxation of the interaction of the probe with the hydroxy and acetate moieties, respectively. The more intense interaction of the lighter -OH moiety with the probes explains the greater and faster spectral shift observed in PVA compared to PVAc. The lifetime of this monoexponential spectral shift is independent of temperature in PVA and takes place with a highly negative activation entropy. This fact is attributed to a collective rearrangement of -OH groups to better interact with the excited state. This relaxation nevertheless does not account for the complete accommodation of the excited state. Prodan shows a linear variation of the spectral shift with time that can be explained by microheterogeneity. In PVA, the width at half-maximum of the emission spectra does not change with time for Prodan and it decays with a lifetime similar to the lifetime of the spectral shift in the case of 4-AP. The differences in the behavior of the probes are attributed to their different average location in the polymer matrix.     

Classical toy models for the monopole shift and the quadrupole shift

The penetration of s- and p(1/2)-electrons into the atomic nucleus leads to a variety of observable effects. The presence of s-electrons inside the nucleus gives rise to the isotope shift in atomic spectroscopy, and to the isomer shift in M?ssbauer spectroscopy. Both well-known phenomena are manifestations of the more general monopole shift. In a recent paper (Koch et al., Phys. Rev. A, 2010, 81, 032507), we discussed the existence of the formally analogous quadrupole shift: a tensor correction to the electric quadrupole interaction due to the penetration of relativistic p(1/2)-electrons into the nucleus. The quadrupole shift is predicted to be observable by high-accuracy molecular spectroscopy on a set of 4 molecules (the quadrupole anomaly). The simple physics behind all these related phenomena is easily obscured by an elaborate mathematical formalism that is required for their derivation: a multipole expansion in combination with perturbation theory, invoking quantum physics and ideally relativity. In the present paper, we take a totally different approach. We consider three classical 'toy models' that can be solved by elementary calculus, and that nevertheless contain all essential physics of the monopole and quadrupole shifts. We hope that this intuitive (yet exact) analysis will increase the understanding about multipole shift phenomena in a broader community.     

Site-specific variations of carbonyl chemical shift anisotropies in proteins

By combining molecular dynamics (MD) simulation with a novel extended density functional theory method, we calculate site-specific carbonyl chemical shift tensors in the SMN Tudor domain. We formulate a simple model for the C' chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) based solely on the isotropic chemical shift. Using this simple chemical shift tensor model and the MD simulation, an accurate prediction of transverse C'/N-H cross-correlated relaxation rates can be obtained.     

Relations between the averaged 13C nuclear magnetic resonance chemical shift and the carcinogenic activity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

13C Nuclear magnetic resonance (13C-NMR) spectra were measured for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) to examine the correlation between their chemical shift and carcinogenicity. We confirmed our previous proposition that the carcinogenicity of PAH molecules can be predicted from the value of the averaged 13C-NMR chemical shift. It was also found, using the averaged chemical shift as a parameter, that several quantum chemical indices for the intermediate states of the metabolic transformation are correlated with the carcinogenic activity of PAH. This indicates that the averaged chemical shift can be applied to investigate the metabolic transformation of carcinogenicity.     

An isosparteine derivative for stereochemical assignment of stereogenic (chiral) methyl groups using tritium NMR: theory and experiment

(N-CHDT)-(alpha)-isosparteinium ditosylamide can be used in conjunction with tritium NMR spectroscopy to assign the configuration of an intact stereogenic (chiral) methyl group. The S-CHDT group has a (3)H chemical shift that is 49 ppb downfield of the R-CHDT resonance. The sign and magnitude of this chemical shift difference of these diastereotopic tritium nuclei are found to be in agreement with predictions made via a purely ab initio computational approach. The chemical shift difference is due to an equilibrium isotope effect originating from a novel CH(3)(...)N hydrogen bond. Despite the improved tritium chemical shift dispersion, this method is not useful for determining the enantiopurity of CHDTN(Tos)(2) due to partial racemization that occurs during the derivatization step. Milder methylation conditions are described for reactions using methyl p-toluenesulfonate or methyl-d(3) triflate. These studies suggest that (-)-(alpha)-isosparteine is a potential new reagent for chirality analysis of methyl groups originating from suitably reactive electrophiles.     

Two-stage sensing property via a conjugated donor-acceptor-donor constitution: application to the visual detection of mercuric ion

A conjugated donor-acceptor-donor molecule incorporating a central moiety of naphthyridine and two terminal moieties of di(hydroxyethyl)aniline connected by ethynyl bridges shows two-stage color changes on binding with mercury(II) ion in Me(2)SO/H(2)O (1:1) solution with a bathochromic shift from 450 to 498 nm, and then an extraordinarily large hypsochromic shift to 378 nm. In comparison, the corresponding donor-acceptor molecule weakly binds mercury(II) ion with a hypsochromic shift from 408 to 375 nm. Our designed sensor of the donor-acceptor-donor system shows high selectivity toward mercury(II) ion over other competing metal ions.