Electrochemical Hydroxylation of Arenes Catalyzed by a Keggin Polyoxometalate with a Cobalt(IV) Heteroatom

The sustainable, selective direct hydroxylation of arenes, such as benzene to phenol, is an important research challenge. An electrocatalytic transformation using formic acid to oxidize benzene and its halogenated derivatives to selectively yield aryl formates, which are easily hydrolyzed by water to yield the corresponding phenols, is presented. The formylation reaction occurs on a Pt anode in the presence of [Co^IIIW₁₂O₄₀]^5? as a catalyst and lithium formate as an electrolyte via formation of a formyloxyl radical as the reactive species, which was trapped by a BMPO spin trap and identified by EPR. Hydrogen was formed at the Pt cathode. The sum transformation is ArH+H₂O→ArOH+H₂. Non‐optimized reaction conditions showed a Faradaic efficiency of 75 % and selective formation of the mono‐oxidized product in a 35 % yield. Decomposition of formic acid into CO₂ and H₂ is a side‐reaction.     

Eigenvalue Asymptotics of the Stokes Operator for Fractal Domains

The leading asymptotic term for the function that counts theeigenvalues of the Stokes operator is determined for fairlygeneral underlying bounded domains. Moreover, the remainderis estimated in terms of the fractality of the boundary of thedomain. The results obtained resemble corresponding ones forthe Dirichlet Laplacian. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification:35P20.     

Oxidative C-C bond cleavage of primary alcohols and vicinal diols catalyzed by H5PV2Mo10O40 by an electron transfer and oxygen transfer reaction mechanism

Primary alcohols such as 1-butanol were oxidized by the H5PV2Mo10O40 polyoxometalate in an atypical manner. Instead of C-H bond activation leading to the formation of butanal and butanoic acid, C-C bond cleavage took place leading to the formation of propanal and formaldehyde as initial products. The latter reacted with the excess 1-butanol present to yield butylformate and butylpropanate in additional oxidative transformations. Kinetic studies including measurement of kinetic isotope effects, labeling studies with 18O labeled H5PV2Mo10O40, and observation of a prerate determining step intermediate by 13C NMR leads to the formulation of a reaction mechanism based on electron transfer from the substrate to the polyoxometalate and oxygen transfer from the reduced polyoxometalate to the organic substrate. It was also shown that vicinal diols such as 1,2-ethanediol apparently react by a similar reaction mechanism.     

Cauchy–Gelfand problem and the inverse problem for a first-order quasilinear equation

Gelfand’s problem on the large time asymptotics of the solution of the Cauchy problem for a first-order quasilinear equation with initial conditions of the Riemann type is considered. Exact asymptotics in the Cauchy–Gelfand problem are obtained and the initial data parameters responsible for the localization of shock waves are described on the basis of the vanishing viscosity method with uniform estimates without the a priori monotonicity assumption for the initial data.     

Transfer measurements for the Ti+Ni systems at near barrier energies

Large enhancements have been observed in the sub-barrier fusion cross sections for Ti+Ni systems in our previous studies. Coupled channel calculations incorporating couplings to 2⁺ and 3⁻ states failed to explain these enhancements completely. A possibilty of transfer channels contributing to the residual enhancements had been suggested. In order to investigate the role of relevant transfer channels, measurements of one- and two-nucleon transfer were carried out for ^46,48Ti+⁶¹Ni systems. The present paper gives the results of these studies.     

Causal loop diagrams as a de-escalation technique

Escalation of commitment, the tendency of decision makers to keep on investing in losing courses of action, has been shown to be a costly decision bias that affects many areas of decision making. Even though escalation is a widely studied phenomenon, there has been comparatively little research on how to avoid this bias. The present study focuses on de-escalation of commitment and proposes that causal loop diagrams (CLDs) can help to decrease escalating commitment to a failing course of action. By means of an experiment, this study shows that using a CLD decreases escalation tendencies.