Sulfoxide‐Directed Metal‐Free ortho‐Propargylation of Aromatics and Heteroaromatics

A sulfoxide‐directed, metal‐free ortho‐propargylation of aromatics and heteroaromatics exploits intermolecular delivery of a propargyl nucleophile to sulfur followed by an intramolecular relay to carbon. The operationally simple cross‐coupling procedure is general, regiospecific with regard to the propargyl nucleophile, and shows complete selectivity for products of ortho‐propargylation over allenylation. The use of secondary propargyl silanes allows metal‐free ortho‐coupling to form carbon–carbon bonds between aromatic and heteroaromatic rings and secondary propargylic centres. The ‘safety‐catch’ nature of the sulfoxide directing group is illustrated in a selective, iterative double cross‐coupling process. The products of propargylation are versatile intermediates and they have been readily converted into substituted benzothiophenes.     

Highly Stereoselective Synthesis of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary α-S-Sialosides under Lewis Acidic Conditions

N-Acetyl 4-O,5-N-oxazolidinone protected sialyl phosphates of either anomeric configuration are excellent donors for the formation of α-S-sialosides at -78 °C in dichloromethane with primary, secondary, and tertiary thiols including galactose 3-, 4-, and 6-thiols. The reactions, which proceed under typical Lewis acid promoted glycosylation conditions, are highly α-selective and do not suffer from competing elimination of the phosphate.     

Core-shell H-ZSM-5/silicalite-1 composites: Brønsted acidity and catalyst deactivation at the individual particle level

A combination of in situ UV-Vis and confocal fluorescence micro-spectroscopy is applied to investigate the influence of an external silicalite-1 shell on the Br?nsted acidity and coke formation process of individual H-ZSM-5 zeolite crystals. Three probe reactions were used: oligomerization of styrene, methanol-to-olefin (MTO) conversion and aromatization of light naphtha (LNA) derivatives. Oligomerization of styrene leads to the formation of optically active carbocationic oligomers. Different styrene substitutions indicate the conversion ability of the catalyst acid core, a preferred alignment of the oligomers within the straight zeolite channels and a Br?nsted acidity gradient throughout the zeolite crystal. Both the MTO conversion and the LNA process lead to limited carbonaceous deposition within the external silicalite-1 layer. This outer shell furthermore prevents the growth of extended coke species at the zeolite external surface. During MTO, the formation of carbonaceous compounds initiates at the center of the H-ZSM-5 zeolite core and expands towards the zeolite exterior. This coke build-up starts with a 420 nm UV-Vis absorption band, assigned to methyl-substituted aromatic carbocations, and a second band around 550 nm, which is indicative of their growth towards larger conjugated systems. Aromatization of linear and branched C5 paraffins causes negligible darkening of the zeolite crystals though it forms fluorescent coke deposits and their precursors within the H-ZSM-5 catalyst. Olefin homologues on the contrary cause pronounced darkening of the zeolite composite. Methyl-branching of these reactants slows down the coke formation rate and produces carbonaceous species that are more restricted in their molecular size.     

Compositional elucidation of heavy petroleum base oil by GC × GC‐EI/PI/CI/FI‐TOFMS

Comprehensive two‐dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC) coupled to time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry is a powerful separation tool for complex petroleum product analysis. However, the most commonly used electron ionization (EI) technique often makes the identification of the majority of hydrocarbons impossible due to the exhaustive fragmentation and lack of molecular ion preservation, prompting the need of soft‐ionization energies. In this study, three different soft‐ionization techniques including photo ionization (PI), chemical ionization (CI), and field ionization (FI) were compared against EI to elucidate their relative capabilities to reveal different base oil hydrocarbon classes. Compared with EI (70 eV), PI (10.8 eV) retained significant molecular ion (M^+·) information for a large number of isomeric species including branched‐alkanes and saturated monocyclic hydrocarbons along with unique fragmentation patterns. However, for bicyclic/polycyclic naphthenic and aromatic compounds, EI played upper hand by retaining molecular as well as fragment ions to identify the species, whereas PI exhibited mainly molecular ion signals. On the other hand, CI revealed selectivity towards different base oil groups, particularly for steranes, sulfur‐containing thiophenes, and esters, yielding protonated molecular ions (M + H)⁺ for unsaturated and hydride abstracted ions (M‐H⁺) for saturated hydrocarbons. FI, as expected, generated intact molecular ions (M^+·) irrespective to the base oil chemical classes. It allowed elemental composition by TOFMS with a mass resolving power up to 8000 (FWHM) and a mass accuracy of 1 mDa, leading to the calculation of heteroatomic content, double bond equivalency, and carbon number of the compounds. The qualitative and quantitative results presented herein offer a unique perspective into the detailed comparison of different ionization techniques corresponding to several hydrocarbon classes.     

Radial Symmetry of Overdetermined Boundary-Value Problems in Exterior Domains

In this paper, we extend a classical result by J. Serrin [15] to exterior domains , where Ω is a bounded domain. We prove, under some hypotheses on f, that if there exists a solution of satisfying the overdetermined boundary conditions that and u are constant on , and such that , then the domain Ω is a ball. Under different assumptions on f, this result has been obtained by W. Reichel in [13]. The main result here covers new cases like with . When Ω is a ball, almost the same proof allows us to derive the symmetry of positive bounded solutions satisfying only the Dirichlet condition that u is constant on . Our method relies on Kelvin transforms, various forms of the maximum principle and the device of moving planes up to a critical position. (Accepted May 30, 1997)     

Anomalous Light‐Induced Spin‐State Switching for Iron(II) Spin‐Crossover Molecules in Direct Contact with Metal Surfaces

Light‐induced spin‐state switching is one of the most attractive properties of spin‐crossover materials. In bulk, low‐spin (LS) to high‐spin (HS) conversion via the light‐induced excited spin‐state trapping (LIESST) effect may be achieved with a visible light, while the HS‐to‐LS one (reverse‐LIESST) requires an excitation in the near‐infrared range. Now, it is shown that those phenomena are strongly modified at the interface with a metal. Indeed, an anomalous spin conversion is presented from HS state to LS state under blue light illumination for Fe^II spin‐crossover molecules that are in direct contact with metallic (111) single‐crystal surfaces (copper, silver, and gold). To interpret this anomalous spin‐state switching, a new mechanism is proposed for the spin conversion based on the light absorption by the substrate that can generate low energy valence photoelectrons promoting molecular vibrational excitations and subsequent spin‐state switching at the molecule–metal interface.     

A Fast and Direct Amperometric Determination of Hg2+ by a Bienzyme Electrode Based on the Competitive Activities of Glucose Oxidase and Laccase

A new concept of enzyme inhibition‐based biosensor involving the appearance of an amperometric signal for an inhibition by mercury was developed. The bienzyme sensor was composed of two layers of clay materials. The inner layer was constituted of layered double hydroxides entrapping laccase wired by ABTS. The outer laponite layer contained glucose oxidase (GOD). GOD catalyzed the glucose oxidation with the reduction of O₂ into H₂O₂. This induced a drastic decrease of the biosensor response to O₂ by the electrically wired laccase. HgCl₂ inhibited the O₂ consumption by GOD leading to a signal increase of the electroenzymatic reduction of O₂.     

Photoinduced magnetism in core/shell Prussian blue analogue heterostructures of K(j)Ni(k)[Cr(CN)6]l·nH2O with Rb(a)Co(b)[Fe(CN)6]c·mH2O

Core/shell and core/shell/shell particles comprised of the Prussian blue analogues K(j)Ni(k)[Cr(CN)(6)](l)·nH(2)O (A) and Rb(a)Co(b)[Fe(CN)(6)](c)·mH(2)O (B) have been prepared for the purpose of studying persistent photoinduced magnetization in the heterostructures. Synthetic procedures have been refined to allow controlled growth of relatively thick (50-100 nm) consecutive layers of the Prussian blue analogues while minimizing the mixing of materials at the interfaces. Through changes in the order in which the two components are added, particles with AB, ABA, BA, and BAB sequences have been prepared. The two Prussian blue analogues were chosen because B is photoswitchable, and A is ferromagnetic with a relatively high magnetic ordering temperature, ~70 K, although it is not known to exhibit photoinduced changes in its magnetic properties. Magnetization measurements on the heterostructured particles performed prior to irradiation show behavior characteristic of the individual components. On the other hand, after irradiation with visible light, the heterostructures undergo persistent photoinduced changes in magnetization associated with both the B and A analogues. The results suggest that structural changes in the photoactive B component distort the normally photoinactive A component, leading to a change in its magnetization.