Strong Exchange Couplings Drastically Slow Down Magnetization Relaxation in an Air‐Stable Cobalt(II)‐Radical Single‐Molecule Magnet (SMM)

The energy barrier leading to magnetic bistability in molecular clusters is determined by the magnetic anisotropy of the cluster constituents. By incorporating a highly anisotropic four‐coordinate cobalt(II) building block into a strongly coupled fully air‐ and moisture‐stable three‐spin system, it proved possible to suppress under‐barrier Raman processes leading to 350‐fold increase of magnetization relaxation time and pronounced hysteresis. Relaxation times of up to 9 hours at low temperatures were found.     

Highly Enantioselective Reactions of Configurationally Labile Epimeric Diamine Complexes of Lithiated S‐Benzyl Thiocarbamates

Substitution reactions that employ primary‐carbamoyl‐protected arylmethanethiols are described. The enantiodetermining step was found to occur in the post‐deprotonation step as a dynamic thermodynamic resolution with a chiral bis(oxazoline) ligand. The configurationally labile lithium complexes were trapped with various electrophiles to yield different substitution products in good to excellent yields and enantiomeric excesses. The absolute configurations of the substitution products were determined, and the stereochemical pathway of the substitution reaction was elucidated for different classes of electrophiles. The temperature‐dependent epimerization process was monitored by ¹H and ⁶Li NMR spectroscopy.     

Hydrogen and dihydrogen bonding of transition metal hydrides

Intermolecular interactions between a prototypical transition metal hydride WH(CO)₂NO(PH₃)₂ and a small proton donor H₂O have been studied using DFT methodology. The hydride, nitrosyl and carbonyl ligand have been considered as site of protonation. Further, DFT-D calculations in which empirical corrections for the dispersion energy are included, have been carried out. A variety of pure and hybrid density functionals (BP86, PW91, PBE, BLYP, OLYP, B3LYP, B1PW91, PBE0, X3LYP) have been considered, and our calculations indicate the PBE functional and its hybrid variation are well suited for the calculation of transition metal hydride hydrogen and dihydrogen bonding. Dispersive interactions make up for a sizeable portion of the intermolecular interaction, and amount to 20–30% of the bond energy and to 30–40% of the bond enthalpy. An energy decomposition analysis reveals that the H?H bond of transition metal hydrides contains both covalent and electrostatic contributions.     

Stereoselective preparation of six diastereomeric quatercyclopropanes from bicyclopropylidene and some derivatives

Diastereomeric meso- and d,l-bis(bicyclopropylidenyl) (5) were obtained upon oxidation with oxygen of a higher-order cuprate generated from lithiobicyclopropylidene (4) in 50 and 31 % yield, respectively. Their perdeuterated analogues meso-[D(14)]- and d,l-[D(14)]-5 were obtained along the same route from perdeuterated bicyclopropylidene [D(8)]-3 (synthesized in six steps in 7.4 % overall yield from [D(8)]-THF) in 20.5 % yield each. Dehalogenative coupling of 1,1-dibromo-2-cyclopropylcyclopropane (6) gave a mixture of all possible stereoisomers of 1,5-dicyclopropylbicyclopropylidene 16 in 69 % yield, from which (Z)-cis-16 was separated by preparative gas chromatography (26 % yield). The crystal structure of meso-5 looks like a superposition of the crystal structures of two outer bicyclopropylidene units (3) and one inner s-trans-bicyclopropyl unit, whereas the two outer cyclopropyl moieties adopt a gauche orientation with respect to the cyclopropane rings at the inner bicyclopropylidene units in (Z)-cis-16. Birch reduction with lithium in liquid ammonia of meso-5 and d,l-5 gave two pairs of diastereomeric quatercyclopropanes trans,trans-(R*,S*,R*, S*)-17/cis,trans-(R*,S*,R*,R*)-18 and trans,trans-(R*,S*,S*,R*)-19/cis,trans-(R*,S*,S*,S*)-20 in 97 and 76 % yield, respectively, in a ratio 9:1 for every pair. The latter diastereomer was also obtained as the sole product by Birch reduction of (Z)-cis-16 in 96 % yield. Under the same conditions, tetradecadeuterio analogues trans,trans-[D(14)]-(R*,S*,R*,S*)-17/cis,trans-[D(14)]-(R*, S*,R*,R*)-18 (8:1) and trans,trans-[D(14)]-(R*,S*,S*,R*)-19/cis,trans-[D(14)]-(R*,S*,S*,S*)-20 (12:1) were prepared from meso-[D(14)]-5 and d,l-[D(14)]-5 in 37 and 63 % yield, respectively. Reduction of meso-5 with diimine gave the cis,cis-quatercyclopropane (S*,S*,R*,R*)-21 as the main product (58 % yield) along with the cis,trans-diastereomer (S*,S*,R*,S*)-18 (29 % yield). Thus, five of the six possible diastereomeric quatercyclopropanes were obtained from meso-5, d,l-5, and (Z)-cis-16. The X-ray crystal structure analyses of trans,trans-(R*,S*,R*,S*)-17 and cis,cis-(S*,S*,R*,R*)-21 revealed for the both an unusual conformation in which the central bicyclopropyl unit adopts an s-trans-(antiperiplanar) orientation with phi=180.0 degrees , and the two terminal bicyclopropyl moieties adopt a synclinal conformation with phi=49.8 and 72.0 degrees , respectively. In solution the vicinal coupling constants (3)J(H,H) in trans,trans-(R*,S*,R*,S*)-[D(14)]-17, trans,trans-(R*,S*,S*,R*)-[D(14)]-19, trans,cis-(R*,S*,R*,R*)-[D(14)]-18 and trans,cis-(R*,S*,S*,S*)-[D(14)]-20 were found to be 4.1, 4.7, 5.9 and 5.9 Hz, respectively. This indicates a predominance of the all-gauche conformer in (R*,S*,R*,S*)-17 and a decreasing fraction of it in this sequence of the other diastereomers.     

Synthesis, crystal-structure determination and magnetic properties of two new transition-metal carbodiimides: CoNCN and NiNCN

Synthesis, structure determination, and magnetic properties are reported for the metastable and crystal-chemically isotypic phases cobalt carbodiimide, CoNCN, and nickel carbodiimide, NiNCN, adopting the hexagonal system and space group P63/mmc (NiAs type) with interatomic distances of Co-N = 2.17 Angstrom and Ni-N = 2.12 Angstrom and an octahedral coordination of the transition-metal ions; the NCN(2-) units reveal the carbodiimide shape with two C=N double bonds. The low-susceptibility data go back to strong antiferromagnetic spin-spin coupling, similar to the behavior of the electronically related oxides CoO and NiO.     

Comparing calorimetric and dielectric polarization modes in viscous 2-ethyl-1-hexanol

Dielectric relaxation and dynamic heat capacity measurements are compared for 2-ethyl-1-hexanol near its glass transition temperature Tg in order to further clarify the origin of the prominent Debye-type loss peak observed in many monohydroxy alcohols and other hydrogen-bonding liquids. While the dielectric spectrum epsilon" displays two distinct polarization processes that are separated by a factor of 2000 in terms of the peak frequency, the heat capacity cp" shows only a single peak. The dielectric process with lower amplitude and higher peak frequency coincides with the calorimetric signal, whereas the large dielectric Debye signal is not associated with calorimetric modes. The authors conclude that the Debye process corresponds to a transition among states which differ in energy only in the case of an external electric field.     

Preparation of Arabinoxylan and its Sorption on Bacterial Cellulose During Cultivation

The sorption of arabinoxylan (AX) on bacterial cellulose was investigated by adding AX to the culture medium of Gluconacetobacter xylinus. The starting AX material was produced by alkaline extraction of oat spelts. To investigate the impact of varying AX quality, the residual lignin was reduced by ClO₂ bleaching. Furthermore, bleached and unbleached xylans were subjected to xylanase hydrolysis in order to produce fractions of varying molar mass. Of all samples only the water soluble fractions were used for sorption experiments. A reduced molar mass resulted in a lower sorption of AX to the cellulose, while the lignin content increased the sorption of AX on bacterial cellulose. The sorption of AX resulted in a reduction of bacterial cellulose crystallinity and cellulose Iα content. In combined treatments of AX with xyloglucan and β-glucan no synergistic effect of those polysaccharides on the AX sorption was found.     

Alternating Copolymerization of Ethylene and 5‐Hexen‐1‐ol with [Ethylene(1‐indenyl)(9‐fluorenyl)]‐zirconium Dichloride/Methylaluminoxane as the Catalyst

The copolymerization of ethylene and 5‐hexen‐1‐ol pretreated with trimethylaluminium was performed using [ethylene(1‐indenyl)(9‐fluorenyl)]zirconium dichloride/methylaluminoxane as the catalyst. The 5‐hexen‐1‐ol unit in the copolymer could be increased to about 50 mol‐% with increasing [5‐hexen‐1‐ol/ethylene[ ratio. ¹³C NMR analysis proved that the poly(ethylene‐co‐(5‐hexen‐1‐ol)) containing 50 mol‐% of 5‐hexen‐1‐ol units is an almost alternating copolymer.