Stereo- and regio-controlled aldol synthesis

Treatment of (Z)-trimethylsilyl enol ethers with dibutylboryl trifluoromethanesulfonate followed by removal of trimethylsilyl triflate generated and addition of aldehydes affords the corresponding erythro aldols with almost complete stereo- and regio-selectivities.     

Stereoselective synthesis of erythro-3-fluorophenylalanine

Reductive amination of 3-fluorophenylpyruvic acid was found to give erythro-3-fluorophenylalanine with high selectivity.     

Uniform encapsulation of fine inorganic powder with soapless emulsion polymerization

The encapsulation of inorganic powder of submicron sizes was attempted with soapless emulsion polymerization of methyl methacrylate in water in the presence of the powder. The powders used were barium sulfate and calcium carbonate. The polymerizations were initiated by potassium persulfate and by sodium bisulfite-oxygen redox reaction. The encapsulation state of the powder with the polymer formed varied considerably with the initiators used. With potassium persulfate initiator the powder surface was partially or totally covered by polymer particles, while with redox initiator under air atmosphere the powder surface was well encapsulated with a film-like polymer layer. From the differences in the encapsulation states, an encapsulation mechanism is suggested for each initiator system. Based upon this mechanism, a new encapsulation process capable of covering uniformly fine powders with a film polymer is proposed. An important factor in the new process is the addition of an extremely small quantity of a surfactant into the reaction system prior to the polymerization.     

Radical polymerization behavior of a vinyl monomer bearing five‐membered cyclic carbonate structure and reactions of the obtained polymers with amines

Radical polymerization behavior of a vinyl substituted cyclic carbonate, 4‐phenyl‐5‐vinyl‐1,3‐dioxoran‐2‐one ( 1 ), is described. Radical polymerization of 1 proceeded through selective vinyl polymerization to produce polymers bearing carbonate groups in the side chain, in contrast to that of an oxirane analogue of 1 , 1‐phenyl‐2‐vinyl oxirane that proceeds via the selective ring‐opening fashion. Although the homopolymerization of 1 produce polymers in relatively lower yield, copolymerizations effectively provided cyclic carbonate‐containing copolymers. Nucleophilic addition of primary amines to the resulting homopolymers and copolymers produced the corresponding multifunctional polymers. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 584–592, 2005     

On the elastic properties of ferroelectric Sc* liquid crystals

On the basis of the symmetry consideration of the S_c* phase, a generalized elastic free energy of ferroelectric S_c* liquid crystals is presented to account for the layer compression or dilatation and the layer distortion as well as c director deformation. The present elastic free energy is expressed in terms of three vectors, i.e. the c director and the wave vector and the spontaneous polarization vector. According to the present S_c* model with C₂ symmetry, it is shown that there may exist 17 non-chiral, 4 chiral terms and 14 flexoelectric terms in the S_c* phase. A few practical applications are also presented to elucidate some interesting elastic properties of S_c* (or S_c) in simplifed geometries.     

Multimetal‐Substituted Epsilon‐Iron Oxide ϵ‐Ga0.31Ti0.05Co0.05Fe1.59O3 for Next‐Generation Magnetic Recording Tape in the Big‐Data Era

From the viewpoints of large capacity, long‐term guarantee, and low cost, interest in magnetic recording tapes has undergone a revival as an archive storage media for big data. Herein, we prepared a new series of metal‐substituted ?‐Fe₂O₃, ?‐Ga^III_0.31Ti^IV_0.05Co^II_0.05Fe^III_1.59O₃, nanoparticles with an average size of 18 nm. Ga, Ti, and Co cations tune the magnetic properties of ?‐Fe₂O₃ to the specifications demanded for a magnetic recording tape. The coercive field was tuned to 2.7 kOe by introduction of single‐ion anisotropy on Co^II (S=3/2) along the c‐axis. The saturation magnetization was increased by 44 % with Ga^III (S=0) and Ti^IV (S=0) substitution through the enhancement of positive sublattice magnetizations. The magnetic tape media was fabricated using an actual production line and showed a very sharp signal response and a remarkably high signal‐to‐noise ratio compared to the currently used magnetic tape.     

Morphology and size-controlled synthesis of silver nanoparticles in aqueous surfactant polymer solutions

We have employed a number of reducing and capping agents to obtain Ag(0) metallic nanoparticles of various sizes and morphologies. The size and morphology were tuned by selecting reducing and capping agents. Spherical particles of 15 and 43 nm diameter were obtained when 1 wt% aqueous starch solution of AgNO₃ precursor salt was reduced by d(+)-glucose and NaOH, respectively, on heating at 70 °C for 30 min. Smaller size particles obtained in the case of d(+)-glucose reduction has been attributed to the slow reduction rate by mild reducing agent d(+)-glucose compared to strong NaOH. Conducting the reduction at ambient temperature of silver salt in liquid crystalline pluronic P123 and L64 also gave spherical particles of 8 and 24 nm, respectively, without the addition of any separate reducing agent. NaOH reduction of salt in ethylene glycol (11 g)/polyvinyl pyrolidone (PVP; 0.053 g) mixture produced large self-assembled cubes of 520 nm when smaller (26–53 nm) star-shaped sharp-edged structures formed initially aggregated on heating the preparation at 190 °C for 1 h. Increasing the amount of PVP (0.5 g) in ethylene glycol (11 g) and heating at 70 °C for 30 min yielded a mixture of spherical and non-spherical (cubes, hexagons, pentagons, and triangle) particles without the addition of an extra reducing agent. Addition of 5 wt% PVP to 1 wt% aqueous starched solution resulted in the formation of a mixture of spherical and anisotropic structures when solution heated at 70 °C for 1 h. Homogeneous smaller sized (29 nm) cubes were synthesized by NaOH reduction of AgNO₃ in 12.5 wt% of water-soluble polymer poly(methyl vinyl ether) at ambient temperature in 30 min reaction time.     

The reaction of benzothiazolyl substituted α-phosphorylmethyl sulfoxides with several amines

We have examined the reactivities of α-phosphorylmethyl benzothiazolyl sulfoxides in the thermolyses and in the presence of several amines, such as aniline, benzylamine, piperidine, morpholine, and pyrrolidine. Thermolyses of the derivatives in the presence of 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene afforded 2-phosphoryl substituted 4,5-dimethyl-3,6-dihydro-2H-thiopyran S-oxide. In the reaction with amines, the complex product mixture, which contains α-phosphorylmethyl benzothiazolyl sulfides (2 and 5), α-phosphorylmethyl disulfides (15 and 16), and 2-amino substituted benzothiazole 14 was found to be formed besides the target phosphinecarbothioamides. Several mechanistic studies were performed to elucidate the formation mechanism, particularly for deoxygenated products from the starting sulfoxides, i.e., 2 and 5 from 3 and 6, respectively.