The effect of pre-shear on the extensional rheology of wormlike micelle solutions

The effect of initial microstructural deformation, alignment, and morphology on the response of wormlike micelle solutions in transient uniaxial extensional flows is investigated using a pre-shear device attached to a filament stretching rheometer. In filament stretching experiments, increasing the strength and the duration of the pre-shear just before stretch is found to delay the onset of strain hardening. In these experiments, the wormlike micelle solution filaments fail through a rupture near the axial midplane. The value of the elastic tensile stress at rupture is found to decrease with increasing pre-shear rate and duration. The most dramatic effects are observed at shear rates for which shear banding has been independently observed. The reduction in the strain hardening suggests that pre-shear before filament stretching might break down the wormlike micelles reducing their size before stretch. Strain hardening is also observed in capillary breakup rheometry experiments; however, the pre-sheared wormlike micelle solutions strain harden faster, achieve larger steady-state extensional viscosities and an increase in the extensional relaxation time with increasing shear rate and duration. The difference between the response of the wormlike micelles in filament stretching and capillary breakup experiments demonstrates the sensitivity of these self-assembling micelle networks to pre-conditioning.     

N-heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed reaction of chalcones and enals via homoenolate: an efficient synthesis of 1,3,4-trisubstituted cyclopentenes

Nucleophilic heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed cyclopentannulation of enals and chalcones via homoenolate has been observed for the first time. Serendipitously, the reaction lead to a very efficient synthesis of 3,4-trans-disubstituted-1-aryl cyclopentenes instead of the expected cyclopentanones. The strategy works well with thienylidene tetralone also, leading to the tricyclic cyclopentene derivative.     

p-benzoquinone-benzene clusters as potential nanomechanical devices: a theoretical study

The equilibrium structures and binding energies of the benzene complexes of p-benzoquinones (PBQ) and its negatively charged anionic species (PBQ- and PBQ2-) have been investigated theoretically using second-order M?ller-Plesset calculations. While neutral p-benzoquinone-benzene clusters (PBQ-Bz) prefer to have a parallel displaced geometry (P-c), CH...pi interactions (T-shaped geometries) prevail in the di-anionic PBQ-benzene (PBQ2- -Bz) complexes (T-e2-). Studies on dianionic p-benzoquinone-benzene clusters showed that two nonbonded intermolecular interactions compete in the most stable conformation. One is H-bonding interaction (C-H...O type) between carbonyl oxygen of p-benzoquinone and one of the hydrogen atoms of benzene, and the other is a pi-H interaction between pi-electron cloud of PBQ2- and another hydrogen atom of benzene. Blueshifted H-bonds were observed in T-shaped clusters. The changes in the geometrical preference of PBQ-Bz complex upon addition of electrons would be useful in designing optimized molecular mechanical devices based on the edge-to-face and face-to-face aromatic interactions.     

Robust synthesis of enantiopure cyclohexenyl analogues of 2/3-deoxyribose sugars as carbocyclic nucleoside precursors

An expedient synthesis of 2-deoxy (10) and 3-deoxy (11) cyclohexenyl analogues of 2-deoxy and 3-deoxy-d-ribose sugar from commercially available starting materials is reported. Highly efficient enzymatic resolution of the key compound 10 is described using lipase under hydrolytic conditions. The robust methodology applied here will be useful to synthesize cyclohexenyl nucleosides, which possess potent antiviral activity and are capable of gene silencing via RNAi or antisense applications.     

Electronic and steric effects on the oxygenation of organic sulfides and sulfoxides with oxo(salen)chromium(V) complexes

The kinetics of oxygenation of several para-substituted phenyl methyl sulfides and sulfoxides with a series of 5-substituted and sterically hindered oxo(salen)chromium(V) complexes have been studied by a spectrophotometric technique. Though the reaction of sulfides follows simple second-order kinetics, sulfoxides bind strongly with the metal center of the oxidant and the oxygen atom is transferred from the oxidant-sulfoxide adduct to the substrate. The reduction potentials, E(red), of eight Cr(V) complexes correlate well with the Hammett sigma constants, and the reactivity of the metal complexes is in accordance with the E(red) values. The metal complexes carrying bulky tert-butyl groups entail steric effects. Organic sulfides follow a simple electrophilic oxidation mechanism, and the nonligated sulfoxides undergo electrophilic oxidation to sulfones using the oxidant-sulfoxide adduct as the oxidant. Sulfoxides catalyze the Cr(V)-salen complexes' oxygenation of organic sulfides, and the catalytic activity of sulfoxides is comparable to pyridine N-oxide and triphenylphosphine oxide. The rate constants obtained for the oxidation of sulfides and sulfoxides clearly indicate the operation of a pronounced electronic and steric effect in the oxygenation reaction with oxo(salen)chromium(V) complexes.     

Butterfly Methanes: Designing a Novel Class of anti-van′t Hoff Carbons

Among different possible non-classical structures, the stabilization of half-planar tetracoordinate carbon conformation is believed to be the most difficult one. Herein, we designed three types of half-planar tetracoordinate carbon compounds computationally by employing hybrid stabilization effects of substituents. The axial hydrogens of unstable half-planar methane are substituted with π-acceptor and σ-donor substituents such as −BH₂, −Li and the equatorial substituents selected are a combination of electropositive atoms (σ-donors)/electronegative atoms (σ-acceptors and π-donors). To establish the stabilization factors, we conducted a detailed study on vibrational frequency analysis, molecular orbital analysis (including Natural Bond Orbitals) and electrostatic potential (ESP) analysis of optimized molecular geometries using density functional theory.