Quantum mechanical effects in acid–base chemistry

Acid–base chemistry has immense importance for explaining and predicting the chemical products formed by an acid and a base when mixed together. However, the traditional chemistry theories used to describe acid–base reactions do not take into account the effect arising from the quantum mechanical nature of the acidic hydrogen shuttling potential and its dependence on the acid base distance. Here, infrared and NMR spectroscopies, in combination with first principles simulations, are performed to demonstrate that quantum mechanical effects, including electronic and nuclear quantum effects, play an essential role in defining the acid–base chemistry when 1-methylimidazole and acetic acid are mixed together. In particular, it is observed that the acid and the base interact to form a complex containing a strong hydrogen bond, in which the acidic hydrogen atom is neither close to the acid nor to the base, but delocalized between them. In addition, the delocalization of the acidic hydrogen atom in the complex leads to characteristic IR and NMR signatures. The presence of a hydrogen delocalized state in this simple system challenges the conventional knowledge of acid–base chemistry and opens up new avenues for designing materials in which specific properties produced by the hydrogen delocalized state can be harvested.

Acid-based theories do not consider the quantum mechanical nature of the acidic hydrogen shuttling potential. Here, it is demonstrated that this particularity is needed to explain the formation acid-base complex with a delocalized acidic hydrogen.     

Relativity and the chemistry of UF6: A molecular Dirac—Hartree—Fock—CI study

The electronic structure and bonding of UF₆ and UF₆⁻ are studied within a relativistic framework using the MOLFDIR program package. A stronger bonding but more ionic molecule is found if one compares the relativistic with the nonrelativistic results. The first peak in the photoelectron spectrum of Karlsson et al. is assigned to the 12γ_8u component of the 4t_1u orbital, in agreement with other theoretical and experimental results. Good agreement is found between the experimental and theoretical 5f spectrum UF₆⁻. Some properties, like the dissociation energy and electron affinity, are calculated and the necessity of a fully relativistic framework is shown. The Breit interaction has an effect on the core spinors and the spin-orbit splitting of these spinors but the influence on the valence spectrum is negligible. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Liquid-phase oxidation of isobutane—a reanalysis of the data

Data on the liquid-phase oxidation of isobutane at 50 and 100°C have been reexamined, using a modified mechanism to take into account the termination by isobutylperoxy radicals. Algebraic expressions are derived from steady-state methods. Using Arrhenius parameters fitted by transition-state A factors and activation energies derived from observed “best” rate constants, new sets of parameters are derived for the rate constants for propagation by t? BuO₂ + t? BuH → t-BuO₂H + t? Bu^?: where θ = 2.303RT in kcal/mol. This, together with new values for the termination parameters and rates of i-butyl production by k_4B, is shown to give good agreement with the published data. An important reaction: is shown to quench the possible contributions to termination of adventitious radicals such as CH₃O^?₂.     

Quantum chemistry and Dick Stufkens photochemistry

A survey of the quantum chemical results obtained for several MLCT complexes studied in Amsterdam is presented in order to illustrate the progress made in this field from the beginning of the 1980s when excited states properties were analyzed in terms of bonding and antibonding molecular orbitals (MO). Nowadays the photoactive states and the main features of the absorption spectra can be determined without any ambiguity. The time scales of elementary processes such as direct ultra-fast dissociations or intersystem crossing processes, are also readily available.     

Quantum chemistry studies of unbranched fluoropolymers

The results of quantum chemistry calculations of energy and topology parameters, vibration and NMR spectra of model fluorocarbon and unbranched hydrocarbon molecules are presented in this work. The formation of radicals and branches in fluorocarbon molecules and mechanisms of hydrogen substitution by fluorine at fluorination of hydrocarbon paraffins and polymers are discussed based on obtained results.     

Gabedit—A graphical user interface for computational chemistry softwares

Gabedit is a freeware graphical user interface, offering preprocessing and postprocessing adapted (to date) to nine computational chemistry software packages. It includes tools for editing, displaying, analyzing, converting, and animating molecular systems. A conformational search tool is implemented using a molecular mechanics or a semiempirical potential. Input files can be generated for the computational chemistry software supported by Gabedit. Some molecular properties of interest are processed directly from the output of the computational chemistry programs; others are calculated by Gabedit before display. Molecular orbitals, electron density, electrostatic potential, nuclear magnetic resonance shielding density, and any other volumetric data properties can be displayed. It can display electronic circular dichroism, UV–visible, infrared, and Raman‐computed spectra after a convolution. Gabedit can generate a Povray file for geometry, surfaces, contours, and color‐coded planes. Output can be exported to a selection of popular image and vector graphics file formats; the program can also generate a series of pictures for animation. Quantum mechanical electrostatic potentials can be calculated using the partial charges on atoms, or by solving the Poisson equation using the multigrid method. The atoms in molecule charges can also be calculated. Gabedit is platform independent. The code is distributed under free open source X11 style license and is available at http://gabedit.sourceforge.net/ . © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010     

Cyclic imino ethers — Polymerization chemistry and polymer characteristics

This paper describes recent developments in polymerization of cyclic imino ethers, 2-oxazolines and 5,6-dihydro-4H-1,3-oxazines, which have been performed mainly in our laboratory. Cationic ring-opening polymerizations of these two kinds of monomers gave poly(N-acylethylenimine)s and poly(N-acyltrimethylenimine)s, whose hydrolysis produced linear poly-ethylenimine and poly(trimethylenimine), respectively. The mechanism of the polymerization is mainly governed by the nature of monomer and of the counter anion derived from initiator. There are two types of stable propagating species; cyclic onium species and covalent alkyl halide species. In a specific case, e.g., the polymerization of 5-methyl-2-oxazoline with MeI initiator, both ionic and covalent species are involved in equilibrium and propagate concurrently. Then, a new terminology of “Electrophile Polymerization” has been proposed as a broader expression including cationic and covalent propagating species. By utilizing living nature of the cyclic imino ether polymerization, block copolymerizations between these monomers were performed. A poly(cyclic imino ether) chain becomes hydrophilic or lipophilic depending on the monomer. Product AB and ABA type block copolymers were soluble in water and showed excellent surface properties reflected by values of surface tension (γ), when A (or B) and B (or A) are hydrophilic and lipophilic. Thus, various nonionic polymer surfactants of block and graft type have been prepared from cyclic imino ethers. Finally, poly(N-acetylethylenimine) chain showed good compatibility with poly(vinyl chloride). Cellulose diacetate and poly(vinyl chloride) are not miscible, but cellulose diacetate g-poly(N-acetylethylenimine) is miscible with poly(vinyl chloride), the graft chain acting as a “compatibilizer”.     

Development of ceramic-matrix composites — A challenge to chemistry

In this contribution the state-of-the-art of ceramic-matrix composites is briefly summarized. A critical review of the different types of ceramic composites is given, particularly emphasizing the challenge to chemistry. As example two important problem areas, which may only be solved by contributions from chemistry, are discussed: some low- temperature processing techniques for ceramic composites which avoid damage of fibres by thermal or mechanical loading and/or by chemical reactions as well as the optimization and control of interfaces.     

Fluorocarbon metal compounds—role models in organotransition metal chemistry

Early studies on organo-transition metal complexes with fluorocarbon ligands are reviewed in a historical context in relation to the renaissance of organometallic chemistry which followed the discovery of ferrocene.     

Naphthyridine chemistry. XVI. A literature correction —The preparation of 2,4-Dimethyl-7-ethoxy-1,8-naphthyridine 1-Oxides

The N-oxidation of 2,4-dimethyl-7-ethoxy-1,8-naphthyridine has been shown to afford the 1-oxide rather than the 1,8-dioxide as reported by others.     

Durability of polymers—material property data

Some standardisation of input data is required for material property data bases. A brief review is given of developments of data bases of relevance to polymers and particular consideration given to the requirements for durability data. The measurements to be made in the Design Data Initiative Durability programme are outlined.     

Quantum chemistry, Sobolev spaces and SCF

Extended wavefunctions, including the wavefunction gradient, and the norm induced Sobolev spaces are presented as a mathematical structure well adapted to the approximate quantum-chemical formalism, customarily used to handle the Schrödinger equation. A useful application, related to the solution of SCF Euler equations in matrix form, is also analysed.     

Quantum chemistry studies of adenosine 2503 methylation by S‐adenosylmethionine‐dependent enzymes

Ribosome methylation is important for life processes and is mainly catalyzed by radical S‐Adenosylmethionine (SAM) enzymes. Two SAM molecules serve as the cofactor by providing the 5 ′‐deoxyadenosyl radical for substrate activation and the methyl. Recently, Booker and coworkers (Science 2011, 332, 604) proposed an alternative mechanism for a pair of radical SAM enzymes, RlmN and Cfr, which respectively methylate the C2 and C8 of adenosine 2503. Their deuterium labeling experiments reveal that methyl group does not transfer directly from SAM to adenosine, instead it passes to Cys³⁵⁵ first, then onto adenosine. In this article, this new reaction mechanism is studied using density functional theory with B3LYP hybrid functional. The reaction system is simulated using small model compounds in the gas phase, and the protein environment is approximated using polarizable continuum model. The structures of the transition states and the intermediates are identified, and their free energies are calculated. The activation barriers indicate that the proposed reaction mechanism is plausible. The formation of a disulfide bond is found to be the rate‐limiting step. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

自兜反应中质子作用的量子化学模拟

本文采用CNDO/2法, 应用计算所得的键长与Mulliken键级间的关系作为判断量子化学模拟计算各化学强度的相对标准, 研究了质子环境反应物Roussin红盐的S,N,O等原子和由红盐形成Roussin黑盐的自兜反应中可能的中间状态的影响. 计算结果表明, 质子攻击可促使一个桥硫原子或一个NO基脱离体系从而有析于这一自兜反应的进行. 在反应过程中相互靠近的两个红盐阴离子之间的相互作用是影响复合体中各原子间键级变化的重要因素.     

Quantum chemistry beyond Born–Oppenheimer approximation on a quantum computer: A simulated phase estimation study

We present an efficient quantum algorithm for beyond‐Born–Oppenheimer molecular energy computations. Our approach combines the quantum full configuration interaction method with the nuclear orbital plus molecular orbital method. We give the details of the algorithm and demonstrate its performance by classical simulations. Two isotopomers of the hydrogen molecule (H₂, HT) were chosen as representative examples and calculations of the lowest rotationless vibrational transition energies were simulated. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.