Electron impact induced fragmentation of dihydro-1,4-oxathiines. 1. 2,3-substituted 5,6-dihydro-1,4-oxathiines

In the electron impact induced fragmentation of 2,3-disubstituted 5,6-dihydro-1,4-oxathiines, the cleavage of the heterocyclic ring proceeds through the retro Diels-Alder type of reaction. The further fragmentation of the resulting radical cation gives rise to substituted carbonyl or thiocarbonyl cations. This fragmentation favours the formation of an ion which, in the electron-deficient carbon-oxygen or carbon-sulphur triple bond, is stabilized by an electron-releasing group. The ring fragmentation was observed to be dependent on the nature of the 3-substituent of the ring when a series of 3-substituted 5,6-dihydro-2-methyl-1,4-oxathiines was investigated.     

Quantum chemical modeling of chiral catalysis. Part 8. On the conformational freedom of the ketone of ketone-borane complexes of oxazaborolidines used as catalysts in the enantioselective reduction of ketones

Standard ab initio molecular orbital methods were employed to study conformational freedom of the ketone of ketone-borane complexes of chiral oxazaborolidines used as catalysts for the enantioselective reduction of ketones (CBS reduction). A formaldehyde-borane complex of 1,3,2-oxazaborolidine was used as a model system. A new conformation was found which was energetically more advantageous than the original one predicted by Corey et al. The new conformation was predicted to be destabilized by bulky substituents at the C-5 of the ring. A new class of potential oxazaborolidine catalysts for the enantioselective reduction of ketones was invented.     

Quantum mechanical investigation of effects in formation of carbonyl and thiocarbonyl cations. Part I. Fragmentation reactions of 1,2-hemithiodione radical cations

In order to study decomposition reactions of ionic oxygen and sulphur-containing compounds, such as hemithiodione radical cations, a quantum chemical investigation of the formation of formyl, thioformyl, acyl and thioacyl cations and radicals was performed. Calculations were carried out mainly at the 6–31G^* level involving complete geometry optimizations. In the ionization of aldehydes and thioaldehydes, no important energy differences were found between the oxygen and sulphur analogues studied. A stepwise generation of formyl and thioformyl cations from formaldehyde and thioformaldehyde, by hydrogen atom abstraction followed by expulsion of unpaired electrons from the resulting radicals, showed the radicalization of formaldehyde to be only 12.6 kJ mol^?1 more favoured than that of thioformaldehyde. The electron expulsion from formyl radical was 23.8 kJ mol^?1 more favoured than that from thioformyl radical. Substitution of hydrogens of formyl and thioformyl groups by methyls lowered the total formation energies of carbonyl and thiocarbonyl cations 119.2 and 96.2 kJ mol^?1. The formation energy difference between acyl and thioacyl cations was also very small.     

Nachweis des Fluors in Nahrungs- und Genussmitteln

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Side-branch resonators modelling with Green׳s function methods

This paper deals with strategies for computing efficiently the propagation of sound waves in ducts containing passive components. In many cases of practical interest, these components are acoustic cavities which are connected to the duct. Though standard Finite Element software could be used for the numerical prediction of sound transmission through such a system, the method is known to be extremely demanding, both in terms of data preparation and computation, especially in the mid-frequency range. To alleviate this, a numerical technique that exploits the benefit of the FEM and the BEM approach has been devised. First, a set of eigenmodes is computed in the cavity to produce a numerical impedance matrix connecting the pressure and the acoustic velocity on the duct wall interface. Then an integral representation for the acoustic pressure in the main duct is used. By choosing an appropriate Green?s function for the duct, the integration procedure is limited to the duct–cavity interface only. This allows an accurate computation of the scattering matrix of such an acoustic system with a numerical complexity that grows very mildly with the frequency. Typical applications involving Helmholtz and Herschel–Quincke resonators are presented.     

Effect of molecular size on the parity-non-conserving contributions to the nuclear magnetic resonance shielding constant

We present density-functional theory studies on the effects of molecular size on the parity-violating contribution to the nuclear magnetic shielding constant. We focus on models with different backbone and side chain lengths, as well as the details of geometry optimization for certain helical polysilylenes and investigate the parity-violating contribution to the shielding constant of the ²⁹Si nucleus of the backbone. Our calculations show that the molecular geometry has a large influence on the magnitude of the parity-violating shielding contribution, a result that is in line with the previous studies on much smaller molecules. In addition, we find convergence in the magnitude of the PV effect with respect to system size, when using geometries that preserve the helical Si backbone structure optimized for the largest of the present systems. This can be interpreted in terms of the non-size-extensive nature of the parity-violating operator influencing the leading-order effect on nuclear magnetic shielding, as opposed to the size-extensive interaction affecting the energy difference between enantiomers. Our molecules are truncated models of large polysilylene systems, for which a difference in the ²⁹Si chemical shift between enantiomers has been observed to be 0.06 ppm (Fujiki in Macromol Rapid Commun 22, 669–674, 2001). As expected based on earlier first principles studies of small molecules, we do not find support for the difference to be of the parity-violating origin. Instead, the predicted parity-violation-induced splitting of the ²⁹Si resonance is found to converge at values around 10^?8 ppm with increasingly large Si backbone.     

Phase equilibria on five binary systems containing 1-butanethiol and 3-methylthiophene in hydrocarbons

Isothermal vapor–liquid equilibrium (VLE) of the following systems was measured with a recirculation still: 1-butanethiol + methylcyclopentane at 343.15 K, 1-butanethiol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane at 368.15 K, 3-methylthiophene + toluene at 383.15 K, 3-methylthiophene + o-xylene at 383.15 K, and 3-methylthiophene + 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene at 383.15 K. 1-Butanethiol + methylcyclopentane and 1-butanethiol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane systems exhibit positive deviation from Raoult's law, whereas systems containing 3-methylthiophene in aromatic hydrocarbons exhibit only slight positive deviation from Raoult's law. A maximum pressure azeotrope was found in the system 1-butanethiol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (x₁ = 0.548, P = 100.65 kPa, T = 368.15 K). The experimental results were correlated with the Wilson model and compared with original UNIFAC and COSMO-SAC predictive models. Raoult's law can be used to describe the behavior of 3-methylthiophene in aromatic hydrocarbons at the experimental conditions in this work. Liquid and vapor-phase composition were determined with gas chromatography. All measured data sets passed the thermodynamic consistency tests applied. The activity coefficients at infinite dilution are also presented.     

Improved 2-DE of microorganisms after acidic extraction

2-DE separations of protein extracts sometimes have problems with poor resolution and streaking. This problem is particularly apparent with microorganisms, most notably those with a large cell wall. Here we describe a novel, rapid protocol for the extraction of microorganisms in acidic conditions, leading to increased resolution and 2-D gel quality. The efficiency of the protocol is demonstrated with extracts of bacteria, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis; fungus, Trichoderma harzianum and yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We also demonstrate using a membrane centrifugal filtration, that large acidic molecules in excess of 100 kDa, probably including cell wall material, are responsible for the separation difficulties. A range of acidic extraction conditions were investigated, and it was found that optimal extraction is achieved using an extraction solution acidified to pH 3 by 80 mM citric acid. These findings have significant implications for the proteomic study of many medically, agriculturally and environmentally significant microorganisms, as the cell walls of these organisms are often considerably more complex than many commonly studied laboratory strains.