Open shell organometallics: a general analysis of their electronic structure and reactivity

Transition metal organometallic compounds that contain fewer than 18-electrons and two or more unpaired electrons are generally excluded from treatises of either Werner-type coordination compounds or organometallic chemistry. However, they can be seen as the bridge filling the gap between these two traditional areas of coordination chemistry. Their magnetic and optical properties are reminiscent of the Werner-type complexes, whereas their chemical reactivity parallels that of the lower-valent organometallics. Spin state change phenomena are of paramount importance in this area. This paper provides a broad perspective of this area, with particular attention to: (i) how the ground state properties can be related to the metal and ligands nature; (ii) under which circumstances the often inappropriately invoked concept of “spin block” is meaningful; (iii) the spin acceleration concept; (iv) how the coordination sphere affects the topology of the reaction coordinate in the vicinity of spin crossing points; and (v) the effect of spin state changes on reaction selectivities.     

Heterogeneous selective catalytic hydrogenation of aryl ketones to alcohols without additives

A selective hydrogenation of different aryl ketones can be obtained by using a heterogeneous copper catalyst under very mild experimental conditions, namely 90 °C and 1 atm of hydrogen, without using any kind of additive or poisoning agent.     

Hydrogenation of arenes over silica-supported catalysts that combine a grafted rhodium complex and palladium nanoparticles: evidence for substrate activation on Rh(single-site)-Pd(metal) moieties

The complex Rh(cod)(sulfos) (Rh(I); sulfos = (-)O(3)S(C(6)H(4))CH(2)C(CH(2)PPh(2))(3); cod = cycloocta-1,5-diene), either free or supported on silica, does not catalyze the hydrogenation of benzene in either homogeneous or heterogeneous phase. However, when silica contains supported Pd metal nanoparticles (Pd(0)/SiO(2)), a hybrid catalyst (Rh(I)-Pd(0)/SiO(2)) is formed that hydrogenates benzene 4 times faster than does Pd(0)/SiO(2) alone. EXAFS and DRIFT measurements of in situ and ex situ prepared samples, batch catalytic reactions under different conditions, deuterium labeling experiments, and model organometallic studies, taken together, have shown that the rhodium single sites and the palladium nanoparticles cooperate with each other in promoting the hydrogenation of benzene through the formation of a unique entity throughout the catalytic cycle. Besides decreasing the extent of cyclohexa-1,3-diene disproportionation at palladium, the combined action of the two metals activates the arene so as to allow the rhodium sites to enter the catalytic cycle and speed up the overall hydrogenation process by rapidly reducing benzene to cyclohexa-1,3-diene.     

The Compressible to Incompressible Limit of One Dimensional Euler Equations: The Non Smooth Case

We prove a rigorous convergence result for the compressible to incompressible limit of weak entropy solutions to the isothermal one dimensional Euler equations.     

On the stability of the standard Riemann semigroup

We consider the dependence of the entropic solution of a hyperbolic system of conservation laws

on the flux function . We prove that the solution is Lipschitz continuous w.r.t. the norm of the derivative of the perturbation of . We apply this result to prove the convergence of the solution of the relativistic Euler equation to the classical limit.

     

Network structures from selection principles

We present an analysis of the topologies of a class of networks which are optimal in terms of the requirements of having as short a route as possible between any two nodes while yet keeping the congestion in the network as low as possible. Strikingly, we find a variety of distinct topologies and novel phase transitions between them on varying the number of links per node. Our results suggest that the emergence of the topologies observed in nature may arise both from growth mechanisms and the interplay of dynamical mechanisms with a selection process.