Steric crowding can stabilize a labile molecule: solving the hexaphenylethane riddle

12 not so angry men: Hexaphenylethane is unstable, a phenomenon traditionally attributed to steric repulsion between the six phenyl rings. However, adding 12 bulky tert-butyl groups, one to each of the 12 meta positions, gives a stabile ethane derivative (see space-filling model and potential energy curve for the dissociation of the central C-C bond). This unexpected stabilization is shown to result from attractive dispersion interactions between the substituents.     

Pd-N to Pd-O rearrangement for a carbamate synthesis from carbon dioxide and methane: a density functional and ab initio molecular dynamics metadynamics study

We investigated the key step of Pd-N to Pd-O rearrangement from a model catalytic cycle for the activation of carbon dioxide and methane with static quantum chemical calculations and metadynamics simulation. Our calculations show that different bottlenecks appear in the catalytic cycle but that the investigated rearrangement of the Pd-N to Pd-O bounded complex has a barrier ΔG(#)/ΔF(#) of approximately 20 kJ mol?1 and is therefore accessible at ambient reaction conditions.     

Unexpected electron transfer in cryptochrome identified by time-resolved EPR spectroscopy

Subtle differences in the local sequence and conformation of amino acids can result in diversity and specificity in electron transfer (ET) in proteins, despite structural conservation of the redox partners. For individual ET steps, distance is not necessarily the decisive parameter; orientation and solvent accessibility of the ET partners, and thus the stabilization of the charge-separated states, contribute substantially.     

Simulation of photoelectron spectra using the reflection principle in combination with unrestricted excitation ADC2 to assess the accuracy of excited-state calculations

The gas-phase photoelectron spectra of ethene, formaldehyde, formic acid and difluoromethane are simulated using the reflection principle and the unrestricted second-order algebraic diagrammatic construction [UADC(2)] scheme of the polarization propagator for the computation of the vertical-excited states of the cations at the equilibrium geometry of the parent neutral molecule. Comparison is made with experimental spectra and the established highly accurate ionization IP-ADC(3) theory to gain insight into the accuracy and applicability of recently developed excitation UADC schemes. Within UADC(2), we distinguish between the strict and extended schemes UADC(2)-s and UADC(2)-x. While the latter approach is found to slightly underestimate the experimental photoelectron spectra by 0.3 eV and can thus be regarded as a reliable scheme within the limits of the applied reflection principle and the underlying approximations, the UADC(2)-s scheme tends to overestimate the excitation energies by about 0.5 eV. Time-dependent density functional theory is also applied in combination with the standard B3LYP xc functional and turns out to be a useful computational tool for the simulation of the photoelectron spectra of the studied species.