Benign coupling of reactions and separations with reversible ionic liquids

Reversible ionic liquids are a novel class of solvents that combine an effective medium where reactions occur with a ‘built-in’ separation ability for facile recovery of the products and catalysts, making the solvent available for recycle. We report the utility of these solvents in a number of reactions (Claisen-Schmidt condensation, Heck C-C coupling, and CO₂ capture) and discuss the effectiveness of the separation. We also provide insight into the challenges and limitations of using these unique solvent systems to couple reactions and separations.     

New deaminations IX - pyrolysis of N-alkyl-N,N-disulfonimides

N,N-Disulfonimide derivatives of certain alkyl amines stereoselectively pyrolyze without skeletal rearrangement to give up to 99% yields of alkenes.     

Gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric characterisation of amiton and the recovery of amiton from concrete,paint, rubber and soil matrices

Amiton [O,O-diethyl S-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl] phosphorothiolate], is an organophosphorus chemical included in Schedule 2 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Verification provisions under the CWC rely on the existence of a database of analytical information for scheduled chemicals and related compounds. Little analytical information is available for amiton. In this study, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) characterisation of amiton and its typical impurities (including by-products and degradation products), supported by selective GC detection and 31P NMR data, was undertaken. Twenty-one compounds, including a by-product unique to amiton from an industrial source, were identified. Involatile degradation products of amiton were derivatised to enable their identification by GC-MS. The recovery of amiton from matrices that may be expected in an inspection scenario (i.e. concrete, paint, rubber and soil) was also examined. Paint and concrete matrices were the most useful matrices for the detection of amiton, and its by-products and degradation products. Amiton was readily detected in these matrices after 28 days.     

High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of 2-furaldehyde in spirits

Official methods for the determination of 2-furaldehyde in spirits involve for a spectrophotometric evaluation, which is characterized by poor specificity. Gas chromatographic evaluations have also been proposed, which offer a much higher sensitivity, particularly when capillary columns are used. In this paper a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method based on the formation of the 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazones of carbonyl compounds and subsequent reversed-phase separation of these derivatives is described. Derivatization is carried out by utilizing an acidic solution of 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine in acetonitrile. Precipitation of the derivatives is avoided, and direct injection of the sample into the HPLC system is allowed. The determination ofrers a high specificity and a detection limit of the order of 10⁻⁸ mol/1. Accuracy and reproducibility data are presented.     

Heat of hydrogenation of 1,5-dehydroquadricyclane. A computational and experimental study of a highly pyramidalized alkene

The radical anion of the highly pyramidalized alkene 1,5-dehydroquadricyclane (1) was generated in the gas phase from the Squires reaction of 1,5-bis(trimethylsilyl)quadricyclane with F-/F2. The electron binding energy and proton affinity of 1*- were determined by bracketing experiments to be 0.6 +/- 0.1 eV and 386 +/- 5 kcal/mol, respectively. These values are in good agreement with values predicted by density functional theory (B3LYP/6-31+G*) and ab initio (CASPT2/6-31+G*) calculations. The experimental heat of hydrogenation of 1, obtained from a thermochemical cycle, was found to be 91 +/- 9 kcal/mol. This value of deltaH(H2) leads to values of 67 +/- 9 kcal/mol for the olefin strain energy (OSE) of 1, 172 +/- 9 kcal/mol for its heat of formation, and 23 +/- 9 kcal/mol for its pi bond dissociation enthalpy. Since the retro-Diels-Alder reaction of neutral 1 is computed to be highly exothermic, the finding that 1*- apparently does not undergo a retro-Diels-Alder reaction is of particular interest. The B3LYP/6-31+G* optimized geometry of 1 suggests that the bonding in this alkene is partially delocalized, presumably because the highly pyramidalized double bond in 1 interacts with the distal cyclopropane bonds in a manner that eventually leads to a retro-Diels-Alder reaction. The good agreement of the B3LYP and (2/2)CASPT2 values for the heat of hydrogenation and OSE of 1 with the experimentally derived values provides indirect evidence for the correctness of the B3LYP prediction that the equilibrium geometry of 1 lies part way along the reaction coordinate to the transition structure for the retro-Diels-Alder reaction.     

Effects of an 8-bromodeoxyguanosine incorporation on the parallel quadruplex structure [d(TGGGT)]4

NMR, molecular dynamics and mechanics calculations, and CD spectroscopy were used to characterise three tetramolecular quadruplex complexes: [d(TG(Br)GGT)](4), [d(TGG(Br)GT)](4) and [d(TGGG(Br)T)](4), where G(Br) indicates an 8-bromoguanine residue. All three quadruplexes are characterised by a 4-fold symmetry with all strands parallel to each other and, differently to what has been observed for other parallel quadruplex structures, with a tetrad (formed by 8-Br-dGs) in a syn conformation. The whole of the data demonstrates that the replacement in turn of different dG residues with 8-Br-dG in the sequence 5[prime or minute]-TGGGT-3[prime or minute] affects the resulting structures in different ways, leading to different CD profiles and thermal stabilities. Particularly, [d(TG(Br)GGT)](4) and [d(TGG(Br)GT)](4) are more stable than the unmodified sequence, whereas [d(TGGG(Br)T)](4) is much less stable than the natural counterpart. The conformational features found in the three quadruplexes might, in principle, amplify the range of applicability of synthetic oligonucleotides as aptamers or catalysts, by providing novel structural motifs with different molecular recognition capabilities from those of native DNA sequences.     

A finite-size dynamic-scaling approach for the diffusion front of particles

The scaling behavior of the diffusion front, originated by the random motion of particles under a concentration gradient, is studied by means of the Monte Carlo method and solving the diffusion equation. Simulations are performed on the square lattice using confined geometries of size MxL, where the gradient is established along the M direction while periodic boundary conditions are set along the L direction. A dynamic scaling Ansatz is proposed such as the width of the front [w(M,t)] scales as w(M,t) approximately M(alpha)f(t/M(alpha/beta)), where alpha and beta are the roughness and growing exponents, respectively. This proposal is based on the fact that the development of w is constrained by the gradient, that decays as M(-1), in contrast to the standard Family-Vicsek scaling Ansatz where correlations are constrained by the lateral dimension of the sample. It is found that the roughness exponent exhibits a systematic dependence on the sample size that can be rationalized in terms of a finite-size correction. Extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit gives alpha=4/7, in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions linking the diffusion system to the percolation problem. The evaluation of the growing exponent gives beta=0.30+/-0.02, leading us to the conjecture beta=2/7 for the exact value.     

Analysis of T-2 and HT-2 toxins in cereal grains by immunoaffinity clean-up and liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

A sensitive, precise and accurate method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of T-2 and HT-2 toxins in cereal grains at ppb levels using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection and 1-antroylnitrile (1-AN) as labeling reagent after immunoaffinity clean-up. Cereal samples were extracted with methanol/water (90:10, v/v), and the extracts were cleaned-up through commercially available immunoaffinity columns containing monoclonal anti-T-2 antibodies (T-2 test HPLC, Vicam). T-2 and HT-2 toxins were quantified by reversed-phase HPLC with fluorometric detection (excitation wavelength 381 nm, emission wavelength 470 nm) after derivatization with 1-AN. The monoclonal antibody showed 100% cross-reactivity with both T-2 and HT-2 toxin, and the immunoaffinity column clean-up was effective up to 1.4 microg of both toxins. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of T-2 and HT-2 toxins in wheat, maize and barley. Recoveries from spiked samples with toxin levels from 25 to 500 microg/kg ranged from 70% to 100%, with relative standard deviation generally lower than 8%. The limit of detection of the method was 5 microg/kg for T-2 toxin and 3 microg/kg for HT-2 toxin, based on a signal-to-noise ratio 3:1. HT-2 toxin was detected in ten naturally contaminated wheat samples out of 14 samples analyzed, with toxin levels ranging from 10 to 71 microg/kg; three of them contained also T-2 toxin up to 12 microg/kg.     

Crystallographic characterization of N,N′-diarylformamidines bearing an alkoxy substituent at either the meta- or ortho-position

Crystal structures of four diphenylformamidines bearing phenyl substituents ortho-CH₃O (1), ortho-C₂H₅O (2), meta-CH₃O (3), and meta- ⁿ BuO (4) are reported. In each of the structures, formamidine exists as an unsymmetrical cyclic hydrogen bond dimer, and the geometry of the amidine unit is consistent with the localized C–N and C=N bonds. Interesting conformations due to the orientation of aryl groups were also observed. Crystal Data: 1, orthorhombic, Pbca, a = 11.297(1) Å, b = 15.092(1) Å, c = 16.380(2) Å, V = 2792.6(4) ų, Z = 8; 2, triclinic, P , a = 9.651(1) Å, b = 11.974(1) Å, c = 14.583(2) Å, = 101.789(2)°, = 99.320(2)°, = 99.048(2)°, V = 1595.9(3) ų, Z = 4; 3, orthorhombic, Pbca, a = 15.562(2) Å, b = 8.626(1) Å, c = 20.110(2) Å, V = 2699.4(5) ų, Z = 8; 4, monoclinic, P2₁/c, a = 14.525(2) Å, b = 15.534(2) Å, c = 8.818(1) Å, = 93.113(2)°, V = 1986.6(4) ų, Z = 4.     

The relative performance of the local density approximation and gradient-corrected density functional theory for computing metal–ligand distances in Werner-type and organometallic complexes

Optimized metal-ligand (M-L) bond lengths for 17 classical Werner-type transition-metal complexes were calculated using the local density approximation (LDA) and a gradient-corrected (GC) extension. GCs lengthen the bonds by between 0.02 and 0.09 Å relative to the LDA results. The latter range from 0.02 Å shorter than observed to 0.05 Å longer, while the GC data range from exact agreement with experiment to some 0.12 Å too long. The LDA rms deviation is 0.025 Å compared to the GC error of 0.070 Å. In contrast, data from the literature for organometallic species show that the LDA gives systematically too short M-L distances and GCs lead to a better agreement with experiment. The relative performance of LDA and GC functionals reflects the qualitatively different chemistries of organometallic and Werner-type complexes. The magnitude of the GC bond-length expansion for the latter correlates with the ionicity of the M-L interaction. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.