2,5‐Dicarboxy­anilinium chloride monohydrate

The title compound, C₈H₈NO₄⁺·Cl⁻·H₂O, is the chloro­hydrated form of 2‐amino­benzene‐1,4‐dicarboxylic acid, the basic crystal structure of which is still not known. Mol­ecules are linked by classical N—H⋯O, O—H⋯O, N—H⋯Cl and O—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds, mainly along the mol­ecular plane, into sheets built by unusual R₆⁴(26), R₆⁴(22) and R₄³(22) rings. The stacking between layers is stabilized by another N—H⋯Cl hydrogen bond and by π–π inter­actions between aromatic rings facing each other.     

β‐Peptidic Secondary Structures Fortified and Enforced by Zn2+ Complexation – On the Way to β‐Peptidic Zinc Fingers?

The correlation between β²‐, β³‐, and β^2,3‐amino acid‐residue configuration and stability of helix and hairpin‐turn secondary structures of peptides consisting of homologated proteinogenic amino acids is analyzed (Figs. 1–3). To test the power of Zn²⁺ ions in fortifying and/or enforcing secondary structures of β‐peptides, a β‐decapeptide, 1 , four β‐octapeptides, 2 – 5 , and a β‐hexadecapeptide, 10 , have been devised and synthesized. The design was such that the peptides would a) fold to a 14‐helix ( 1 and 3 ) or a hairpin turn ( 2 and 4 ), or form neither of these two secondary structures (i.e., 5 ), and b) carry the side chains of cysteine and histidine in positions, which will allow Zn²⁺ ions to use their extraordinary affinity for RS^? and the imidazole N‐atoms for stabilizing or destabilizing the intrinsic secondary structures of the peptides. The β‐hexadecapeptide 10 was designed to a) fold to a turn, to which a 14‐helical structure is attached through a β‐dipeptide spacer, and b) contain two cysteine and two histidine side chains for Zn complexation, in order to possibly mimic a Zn‐finger motif. While CD spectra (Figs. 6–8 and 17) and ESI mass spectra (Figs. 9 and 18) are compatible with the expected effects of Zn²⁺ ions in all cases, it was shown by detailed NMR analyses of three of the peptides, i.e., 2, 3, 5 , in the absence and presence of ZnCl₂, that i) β‐peptide 2 forms a hairpin turn in H₂O, even without Zn complexation to the terminal β³hHis and β³hCys side chains (Fig. 11), ii) β‐peptide 3 , which is present as a 14‐helix in MeOH, is forced to a hairpin‐turn structure by Zn complexation in H₂O (Fig. 12), and iii) β‐peptide 5 is poorly ordered in CD₃OH (Fig. 13) and in H₂O (Fig. 14), with far‐remote β³hCys and β³hHis residues, and has a distorted turn structure in the presence of Zn²⁺ ions in H₂O, with proximate terminal Cys and His side chains (Fig. 15).     

Diastereoselective synthesis and spin-dependent photodecarbonylation of di(3-phenyl-2-pyrrolidinon-3-yl)ketones: synthesis of nonadjacent and adjacent stereogenic quaternary centers

A diastereoselective procedure to obtain N-para-methoxybenzyl bis-alpha,alpha'-3-(3-phenyl-2-pyrrolidinone)yl substituted ketones with non-adjacent quaternary stereocenters, DL-2 and meso-3 was followed by a photoinduced, spin-dependent, and diastereoselective decarbonylation to give compounds DL-4 and meso-5, with adjacent all-carbon quaternary stereogenic centers.     

Rapid method for determination of phenylurea herbicides in milk

Summary A method has been developed for the determination of thirteen phenylurea herbicide residues in milk. It involves one-step solvent extraction of the milk with methanol by ultrasonication. The extract is cleaned up on an Amberchrom resin cartridge. Reversed-phase, gradient elution, high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection at 242 nm is used to analyse the residues. The recovery of thirteen phenylurea pesticides is quantitative, ranging from 71.4% to 97.9% for the individual herbicides investigated at concentrations around 0.05 mg kg^–1 and from 65.1% to 95.6% around 0.005 mg kg^–1. The method is not associated with any of the emulsion problems common to conventional solvent extraction, which considerably reduce the sample clean-up process compared with existing methods.     

Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Fillers for The Controlled Release of Antioxidants

the barrier provided by the inorganic domains of organic-inorganic hybrids towards the absorption of low molecular weight penetrants was used in this study as a basis for the development of systems capable of desorbing antioxidants at a slow rate. Polyethyleneoxide-silica hybrids, compatibilized with glycidoxylpropyltrimethoxysilane, were used as carriers of conventional stabilizers for polymers, respectively two phenolic antioxidants and one hindered aromatic diamine system. Ternary phase diagrams were produced in order to determine the “compatibile compositions” using DSC to measure changes in melting point and enthalpy of the antioxidant and polyethylene oxide (PEO). A compatible composition of PEO-silica-BHT (tert. butyl hydroxyl toluene) was used to produce a filler, which was pressed on the form of a fine powder between two polyamide-6 films and subsequently sandwiched with further seven layers of fresh films. The multiple-film stack was aged first in an air circulated oven at 60 °C for 360 days and then for further 475 days at ambient atmospheric conditions. The concentration of carbonyl groups in the aged films was monitored by ATR-IR spectroscopy. A sigmoidal increase was found for the amount of new carbonyl groups formed, starting from the inside layer nearest to the source of antioxidant. This confirms that the antioxidant has diffused from the filler into the surrounding polymer matrix and has reduced the rate of evolution of carbonyl groups resulting from oxidative degradation reactions.     

Aryl to aryl palladium migration in the Heck and Suzuki coupling of o-halobiaryls

A novel 1,4-palladium migration between the o- and o'-positions of biaryls has been observed in organopalladium intermediates derived from o-halobiaryls. The organopalladium intermediates generated by this migration have been trapped either by a Heck reaction employing ethyl acrylate or by Suzuki cross-coupling using arylboronic acids. This palladium migration can be activated or deactivated by choosing the appropriate reaction conditions. Chemical and computational evidence supports the presence of an equilibrium that correlates with the C-H acidity of the available arene positions.     

Rapid fingerprinting of red wines by MALDI mass spectrometry

Here we report a simple and fast method for wine fingerprinting based on direct matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry analysis of different red wine samples, useful for batch-to-batch analysis and for the detection of key compounds even in trace amounts which may vary from vintage to vintage, and from one treatment to another one. A series of 20 samples from different wines were subjected to MALDI mass spectrometry. We found that 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid is far superior with respect to all the matrices tested To the best of our knowledge this is the first application of an effective wine profiling not limited to detection of anthocyanins. More than 80 molecular species were detected. Moreover, qualitative and quantitative differences were observed, owing to the nature and relative abundance of different chemical compounds among the wines.     

TiCl4-promoted addition of nucleophiles to open chain α-amidoalkylphenyl sulfones

Linear α-amidoalkylphenyl sulfones are converted into the corresponding N-acyliminium ions by treatment with TiCl₄ at low temperature and then made to react with different nucleophiles such as allyltrimethylsilane, silyl ketene acetal, anisole and thiophene.     

Distribution of n-alkanes, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrated polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons between the fine and coarse fractions of inhalable atmospheric particulates.

The distribution ratios of n-alkanes, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and nitrated PAH components between fine and coarse fractions of soot has been investigated in downtown Rome through three field campaigns carried out at different times of the year. The preferential accumulation of almost all species investigated onto fine particles has been observed in all field experiments performed. Moreover, nitrated PAHs had varied distributions, according to the origin of their occurrence in the atmosphere; in fact, congeners of photochemical origin accumulated more in fine particles than those released by primary sources.