Preparation of 3,3-disubstituted oxindoles by addition of malonates to 3-halo-3-oxindoles

A method for the synthesis of 3,3-disubstituted oxindole derivatives is described. This involves the base-mediated addition of malonate esters to 3-halo-3-alkyloxindoles. The addition is tolerant of a range of alkyl substituents at position 3 of the oxindole. Addition to an aryl chloro-oxindole is also described.     

Semiconducting Fabrics by In Situ Topochemical Synthesis of Polydiacetylene: A New Dimension to the Use of Organogels

A diyne functionalized 4,6‐O‐benzylidene β‐d ‐galactopyranoside gelator, which can align its diyne motifs upon self‐assembly (gelation) have been synthesized. The organogel formed by this gelator undergoes topochemical polymerization to polydiacetylene (PDA) under photoirradiation. This strategically designed gelator has been used to make semi‐conducting fabrics. By developing the organogel on the fabrics, the gelator molecules were made not only to self‐assemble on the fibers, but also to adhere to fabrics through hydrogen bonding. UV irradiation of the gel‐coated fabric/fiber resulted in the formation of PDA on fibers. The benzylidene motif could be deprotected to get PDA with pendant free sugars that strongly bind to the cotton fibrils through multiple hydrogen bonds. Conductivity measurements revealed the semiconducting nature of these fabrics.     

New theoretical insight into the interactions and properties of formic acid: development of a quantum-based pair potential for formic acid

We performed ab initio quantum-chemical studies for the development of intra- and intermolecular interaction potentials for formic acid for use in molecular-dynamics simulations of formic acid molecular crystal. The formic acid structures considered in the ab initio studies include both the cis and trans monomers which are the conformers that have been postulated as part of chains constituting liquid and crystal phases under extreme conditions. Although the cis to trans transformation is not energetically favored, the trans isomer was found as a component of stable gas-phase species. Our decomposition scheme for the interaction energy indicates that the hydrogen-bonded complexes are dominated by the Hartree-Fock forces while parallel clusters are stabilized by the electron correlation energy. The calculated three-body and higher interactions are found to be negligible, thus rationalizing the development of an atom-atom pair potential for formic acid based on high-level ab initio calculations of small formic acid clusters. Here we present an atom-atom pair potential that includes both intra- and inter molecular degrees of freedom for formic acid. The newly developed pair potential is used to examine formic acid in the condensed phase via molecular-dynamics simulations. The isothermal compression under hydrostatic pressure obtained from molecular-dynamics simulations is in good agreement with experiment. Further, the calculated equilibrium melting temperature is found to be in good agreement with experiment.     

Quantum chemical insights into Alzheimer's disease: Curcumin's chelation with Cu(II), Zn(II), and Pd(II) as a mechanism for its prevention

We provide quantum chemical insights into curcumin's prevention of Alzheimer' disease through curcumin's scavenging of neurotoxic Cu(II), Zn(II), and Pd(II) transition metal ions that catalyze polymerization of amyloid‐β and promote misfolding of amyloid into neurotoxic conformations. We have employed high level quantum chemical computations to study the chelate complexes of curcumin with Cu(II), Zn(II), and Pd(II). Quantum chemically derived structures, IR spectra, and UV‐visible spectra of these complexes corroborate with the observed spectra, confirming that the primary site of chelation is the β‐diketone bridge through the loss of an enolic proton of curcumin. We have also obtained the various structural parameters such as the Mulliken charges on various centers, highest occupied, lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals—all of which confirm that curcumin forms chelate complexes and thus acts as a scavenger of these neurotoxic metal ions preventing Alzheimer's disease. We find that the open‐d‐shell Cu(II) and Pd(II) form nearly square planar complexes while the closed‐d‐shell Zn(II) forms a tetrahedral complex with curcumin. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Hafnium oxide and zirconium oxide atomic layer deposition: initial precursor and potential side-reaction product pathways with H/Si(100)-2 x 1

Hybrid density functional calculations have been carried out using cluster models of the H/Si(100)-2 x 1 surface to investigate the mechanistic details of the initial surface reactions occurring in the atomic layer deposition of hafnium and zirconium oxides (HfO2 and ZrO2). Reaction pathways involving the metal precursors ZrCl4, Zr(CH3)4, HfCl4, and Hf(CH3)4 have been examined. Pathways leading to the formation of a Zr-Si or Hf-Si linkage show a significant sensitivity to the identity of the leaving group, with chloride loss reactions being both kinetically and thermodynamically less favorable than reactions leading to the loss of a methyl group. The energetics of the Zr(CH3)4 and Hf(CH3)4 reactions are similar with an overall exothermicity of 0.3-0.4 eV and a classical barrier height of 1.1-1.2 eV. For the reaction between H2O and the H/Si(100)-2 x 1 surface, the activation energy and overall reaction enthalpy are 1.6 and -0.8 eV, respectively. Due to contamination, trace amounts of H2O may be encountered by metal precursors, leading to the formation of minor species that can lead to unanticipated side-reaction pathways. Such gas-phase reactions between the halogenated and alkylated metal precursors and H2O are exothermic with small or no reaction barriers, allowing for the possibility of metal precursor hydroxylation before the H/Si surface is encountered. Of the contaminant surface reaction pathways, the most kinetically favorable corresponds to the surface -OH deposition. Interestingly, for the hydroxylated metal precursors, a unique reaction pathway resulting in the direct formation of Si-O-Zr and Si-O-Hf linkages has been identified and found to be the most thermodynamically stable pathway available, being exothermic by approximately 1.0 eV.     

Calculating intensities using effective Hamiltonians in terms of Coriolis-adapted normal modes

The calculation of rovibrational transition energies and intensities is often hampered by the fact that vibrational states are strongly coupled by Coriolis terms. Because it invalidates the use of perturbation theory for the purpose of decoupling these states, the coupling makes it difficult to analyze spectra and to extract information from them. One either ignores the problem and hopes that the effect of the coupling is minimal or one is forced to diagonalize effective rovibrational matrices (rather than diagonalizing effective rotational matrices). In this paper we apply a procedure, based on a quantum mechanical canonical transformation for deriving decoupled effective rotational Hamiltonians. In previous papers we have used this technique to compute energy levels. In this paper we show that it can also be applied to determine intensities. The ideas are applied to the ethylene molecule.     

Synthesis of aminoquinolone derivatives

The synthesis of 3-amino-7-chloro-1-ethyl-6-fluoro-4(1H)quinolinone derivatives is described. These were investigated for their antibacterial activity.     

Investigating the effect of π-configurations and methoxy substitution on donor and π- spacers based dyes for dye-sensitized solar cell applications–computational approach

Research on Chemical Intermediates - Triphenylamine and methoxy substituted triphenylamine-based dyes are examined by density-functional theory and time-dependent density-functional theory. The...