A Six-Armed Phenhomazine Ligand with a Potential “Turn-Off” Copper(II) Sensing Capability through Terbium(III) Luminescence Quenching

Herein, the design, synthesis, and characterization of a phenhomazine ligand are described. The ligand has six pendant acetate arms designed for the combined coordination of copper(II) and lanthanide(III) ions, with the perspective of developing a “turn-off” copper sensor. The key step for the ligand preparation was the one-step endomethylene bridge fission of a diamino Tröger's base with a concomitant alkylation. Fluorescence and absorption spectroscopies as well as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments were performed to analyze and understand the coordination properties of the ligand. Transition metal coordination was driven by the synergistic effect of the free nitrogen atoms of the diazocinic core and the two central acetate arms attached to those nitrogen atoms, whereas lanthanide coordination is performed by the external acetate arms, presumably forming a self-assembled 2:2 metallosupramolecular structure. The terbium complex shows the typical green emission with narrow bands and long luminescence lifetimes. The luminescence quenching produced by the presence of copper(II) ions was analyzed. This work sets, therefore, a starting point for the development of a phenhomazine-based “turn-off” copper(II) sensor.     

New Solutions to Einstein's Equations in the Taub Universe and Their Accelerating Stage

Following a specific strategy in which the cosmological time variables are operated upon, a new family of solutions to the empty Taub universe is found. Among the characteristics of such a family, it stands the positive acceleration provided by the tri-curvature property of this universe to two of the three scale factors of the Taub model. This effect of the tri-curvature results not in a restoring force such as normal gravity but in the conversion of the Taub cosmology into an accelerating universe.     

Harmonic approximation to small amplitude nuclear vibrations

We present a microscopic treatment of many body correlations for small amplitude nuclear vibrations in the harmonic approximation. Although this approximation will be valid only within discussed limits, it leads to a very simple generalized form of the usual RPA matrix equation     

New cobalt(II) coordination polymer based on carboxyphenyl-tpy ligand: Photoluminescence,crystal structures and magnetic properties,without orbital contribution

One coordination polymer, [Co(3-ctpy)₂(H₂O)₂]_n*2nEtOH (1), was synthesized by a solvothermal method mixing the complex precursor cobalt(II) acetylacetonate (Co(acac)₂*2H₂O) with 4′-(4-carboxyphenyl)-3,2′:6′,3″-terpyridine (3-Hctpy). This paramagnetic complex has been isolated as a neutral, air and thermal stable solid and has been characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The thermal stability and photoluminescence properties were studied in the solid state. The magnetic behavior presents an interesting challenge since the Co(II) ion has a spin 3/2, which leads to multiple possibilities under the influence of an energy crystal field, from the identification of the ground state to possible transitions to excited states. The usual orbital contribution of the magnetic moment has been extinguished, due to an axially distorted octahedral environment for cobalt, changing the O_h symmetry (with ⁴T_1g ground state) to D_4h (with ⁴A_2g ground state). This decrease in symmetry is responsible for the quenching of the orbital contribution, as will be discussed in this article.     

Density-based Globally Convergent Trust-region Methods for Self-consistent Field Electronic Structure Calculations

A theory of globally convergent trust-region methods for self-consistent field electronic structure calculations that use the density matrices as variables is developed. The optimization is performed by means of sequential global minimizations of a quadratic model of the true energy. The global minimization of this quadratic model, subject to the idempotency of the density matrix and the rank constraint, coincides with the fixed-point iteration. We prove that the global minimization of this quadratic model subject to the restrictions and smaller trust regions corresponds to the solution of level-shifted equations. The precise implementation of algorithms leading to global convergence is stated and a proof of global convergence is provided. Numerical experiments confirm theoretical predictions and practical convergence is obtained for difficult cases, even if their geometries are highly distorted. The reduction of the trust region is performed by a strategy that uses the structure of the energy function providing the algorithm with a nice practical behavior. This framework may be applied to any problem with idempotency constraints and for which the derivative of the objective function is a symmetric matrix. Therefore, application to calculations based both on Hartree–Fock or Kohn–Sham density functional theory are straightforward.     

Synthesis and diels-alder reactions of (S)-3-chloro and (S)-3-ethyl-2-p-tolylsulfinyl-1,4-benzoquinones

The synthesis of the title compounds in enantiomerically pure form is described. Their cycloadditions with cyclopentadiene and 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene in the presence of ZnBr₂ take place on the unsubstituted dienophilic double bond C₅-C₆ giving access to optically active 4a,5,8,8a-tetrahydronaphthoquinones with a diastereoisomeric excess ranging from 40 to 72%.     

Kinetics and mechanisms of the reactions of 3-methoxyphenyl, 3-chlorophenyl, and 4-cyanophenyl 4-nitrophenyl thionocarbonates with alicyclic amines

The reactions of 3-methoxyphenyl, 3-chlorophenyl, and 4-cyanophenyl 4-nitrophenyl thionocarbonates (1, 2, and 3, respectively) with a series of secondary alicyclic amines are studied kinetically in 44 wt % ethanol-water at 25.0 degrees C and an ionic strength of 0.2 M (KCl). Pseudo-first-order rate coefficients (k(obsd)) are obtained for all reactions (amine excess was used). The reactions of compound 1 with piperidine, piperazine, and 1-(2-hydroxyethyl)piperazine and of compounds 2 and 3 with these amines and morpholine exhibit linear k(obsd) versus amine concentration plots with slopes (k1) independent of pH. In contrast, the plots are nonlinear upward for the reactions of substrate 1 with morpholine, 1-formylpiperazine, and piperazinium ion and of substrates 2 and 3 with the two latter amines. For all these reactions, a reaction scheme is proposed with a zwitterionic tetrahedral intermediate (T+/-), which can be deprotonated by an amine to yield an anionic intermediate (T-). When the nonlinear plots are fit through an equation derived from the scheme, rate and equilibrium microcoefficients are obtained. The Br?nsted-type plots for k1 are linear with slopes of beta1 = 0.22, 0.20, and 0.24 for the aminolysis of 1, 2, and 3, respectively, indicating that the formation of T+/- (k1 step) is rate-determining. The k1 values for these reactions follow the sequence 3 > 2 > 1, which can be explained by the sequence of the electron-withdrawing effects from the substituents on the nonleaving group of the substrates.     

Narrow (n,m)-distribution of single-walled carbon nanotubes grown using a solid supported catalyst

Unusually structure-selective growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) has been attained using a CVD method with a solid supported catalyst. In this method, CO feedstock disproportionates on silica-supported catalytic nanoclusters of Co that are formed in situ from mixed salts of Co and Mo. The nanotube products are analyzed by spectrofluorimetry to reveal distributions resolved at the level of individual (n,m) structures. Two structures, (6,5) and (7,5), together dominate the semiconducting nanotube distribution and comprise more than one-half of that population. The average diameter of produced SWNTs is only 0.81 nm, and a strong propensity is found favoring chiral angles near the armchair limit.