An Isolable Silicon Analogue of a Ketone that Contains an Unperturbed Si=O Double Bond

Despite tremendous efforts to synthesize isolable compounds with an Si=O bond, silicon analogues of ketones that contain an unperturbed Si=O bond have remained elusive for more than 100 years. Herein, we report the synthesis of an isolable silicon analogue of a ketone that exhibits a three‐coordinate silicon center and an unperturbed Si=O bond, thus representing the first example of a genuine silanone. Most importantly, this silanone does not require coordination by Lewis bases and acids and/or the introduction of electron‐donating groups to stabilize the Si=O bond. The structure and properties of this unperturbed Si=O bond were examined by a single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction analysis, NMR spectroscopy, and theoretical calculations. Bimolecular reactions revealed high electrophilicity on the Si atom and high nucleophilicity on the O atom of this genuine Si=O bond.     

Enthalpy relaxation of low molecular weight amorphous styrene oligomers measured with an adiabatic calorimeter

Herein, we measured the enthalpy relaxation of three styrene oligomers with different molecular weights (styrene oligomer with M_w?=?4.53?×?10²: PSA-300, styrene oligomer with M_w?=?5.89?×?10²: PSA-500, and styrene oligomer with M_w?=?1.01?×?10³: PSA-1000) near their respective glass transition temperatures (T_g) using an adiabatic calorimeter. We determined the relaxation rates and the amounts of configurational enthalpy released from the temperature dependence of the temperature drift rates around T_g. Based on our experimental findings, we found the amounts of configurational enthalpy release per monomer unit to be 0.8, 3.5, and 1.6 kJ mol^?1 for PSA-300, PSA-500, and PSA-1000, respectively. These values were 3.9–18 times larger than that of glycerol, which is a typical glass-forming liquid.

     

Excited-state reactions of an isolable silylene with aromatic compounds

The first intermolecular reactions of the excited state of a silicon divalent compound (silylene) with benzene derivatives were discovered. Typically, when a benzene solution of an isolable silylene is irradiated with light of wavelengths longer than 420 nm at room temperature, the corresponding silacyclohepta-2,4,6-triene (silepin) is yielded quantitatively. The photochemical insertion of the silylene toward substituted benzenes occurs in general to give the corresponding substituted silepins. The insertion reaction is highly sensitive to the steric hindrance at a reacting C-C double bond in benzene; during the reactions of the silylene with substituted benzenes, only unsubstituted C-C double bonds in the benzene ring reacted selectively. The irradiation of the silylene in the presence of mesitylene afforded the insertion product to a benzylic C-H bond, indicative of the biradical nature of the excited-state silylene.     

Sila-metalation route to hydrido(trialkylsilyl)silyllithiums

The proton abstraction (sila-metalation) of trialkylsilyl-substituted dihydridosilanes with t-BuLi or LDA in THF was found to be a convenient route to the corresponding silyllithiums (RR'SiHLi; 1a, R, R' = t-BuMe(2)Si; 1b, R, R' = Me(3)Si; 1c, R, R' = i-Pr(2)MeSi; 1d, R = t-BuMe(2)Si, R' = 4-methylphenyl). Hydridosilylithium 1a was isolated as air- and moisture-sensitive, but thermally stable, colorless crystals. X-ray analysis has shown that 1a is dimeric in the solid state, where two lithium atoms bridge between anionic silicon atoms forming a parallelogram, each lithium atom is coordinated by one THF molecule, and the Si-H hydrogen atoms are in the plane of the parallelogram. X-ray analysis has shown that (t-BuMe(2)Si)(2)GeHLi (5) has a dimeric structure similar to that of 1a.     

Radiative B meson decays into kpigamma and kpipigamma final states

We report observations of radiative B meson decays into the K+pi(-)gamma and K+pi(-)pi(+)gamma final states. In the B0-->K+pi(-)gamma channel, we present evidence for decays via an intermediate tensor meson state with a branching fraction of B(B0-->K(*)(2)(1430)(0)gamma)=[1.3+/-0.5(stat)+/-0.1(syst)]x10(-5). We measure the branching fraction B(B+-->K+pi(-)pi(+)gamma)=[2.4+/-0.5(stat) +0.4-0.2(syst)]x10(-5), in which the B+-->K(*0)pi(+)gamma and B+-->K+rho(0)gamma channels dominate. The analysis is based on a data set of 29.4 fb(-1) recorded by the Belle experiment at the KEKB collider.     

Hydrogen bonding structure and stability of alpha-chitin studied by 13C solid-state NMR

The structure and stability of hydrogen bonds in alpha-chitin were investigated by (13)C solid-state NMR measurements at different temperatures. Splitting of the carbonyl carbon signal for alpha-chitin was interpreted as two types of hydrogen bonding; the peaks at 173.5 and 175.8 ppm were assigned, respectively, to a carbonyl carbon hydrogen bonded exclusively to the NH group and a carbonyl carbon hydrogen-bonded to both NH and C(6)-OH groups. Approximately 60% of carbonyl groups exclusively contributed to the intermolecular hydrogen bonding and ca. 40% of them to the combination of intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonding. Internal rotation around the C(5)-C(6) bond was detected at 55 degrees C.     

Five-dimensional fission-barrier calculations from 70Se to 252Cf

We present fission-barrier-height calculations for nuclei throughout the periodic table based on a realistic macroscopic-microscopic model. Compared to other calculations (i) we use a deformation space of a sufficiently high dimension, sampled densely enough to describe the relevant topography of the fission potential, (ii) we unambiguously find the physically relevant saddle points in this space, and (iii) we formulate our model so that we obtain continuity of the potential energy at the division point between a single system and separated fission fragments or colliding nuclei, allowing us to (iv) describe both fission-barrier heights and ground-state masses throughout the periodic table.