Comparative vibrational spectroscopic study of 1,3-diacetylbenzene and 2,6-diacetylpyridine aided with density functional calculation

Comparative studies of the Raman and infrared spectra of 1,3-diacetylbenzene and 2,6-diacetylpyridine have been made. The spectra are interpreted with the aid of normal mode analysis following full structure optimization based on the density functional method using different levels of theories and various basis sets combination. The unscaled DFT LSDA frequencies approximate the experimental ones in much more uniform fashion than B3LYP or B3PW91 theories do. Nevertheless the use of overall scale factor leads to further significant improvement with less than 2% error. The scaled B3PW91 6-31G result is best, even though LSDA 6-311G frequencies are superior to the B3PW91 ones before scaling. While making complete assignments of vibrational wavenumbers on the basis of potential energy distribution, some interesting observation in the vibrational spectra of these two molecules have been noticed. Instances of Fermi resonances between fundamentals and some combination modes of vibration have also been ascertained. Following the quantum chemical calculation optimized geometries of the both molecules are predicted. The theoretical global minimum energy calculation helps to find the structural symmetries of the molecules.     

Vibrational dynamics and structural investigation of 4‐benzoylpyridine

The polarized Raman spectra in different environments along with the IR counterpart of 4‐benzoylpyridine (4‐BOP) were critically analyzed to assign all of its normal modes of vibration. The knowledge of the positions of different excited electronic states (EESs)was obtained from the study of electronic absorption spectra. Measurement of Raman excitation profiles (REPs)of several normal modes was carried out to get insight into structural and symmetry properties of the molecule. All the experimental observations were substantiated and corroborated theoretically by quantum chemical calculations (QCCs). The possibility of exciton splitting of the ¹L_a band has been explored both from theoretical and experimental points of view. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymmetric synthesis of densely functionalized medium-ring carbocycles and lactones through modular assembly and ring-closing metathesis of sulfoximine-substituted trienes and dienynes

An asymmetric synthesis of densely functionalized 7-11-membered carbocycles and 9-11-membered lactones has been developed. Its key steps are a modular assembly of sulfoximine-substituted C- and O-tethered trienes and C-tethered dienynes and their Ru-catalyzed ring-closing diene and enyne metathesis (RCDEM and RCEYM). The synthesis of the C-tethered trienes and dienynes includes the following steps: 1) hydroxyalkylation of enantiomerically pure titanated allylic sulfoximines with unsaturated aldehydes, 2) α-lithiation of alkenylsulfoximines, 3) alkylation, hydroxy-alkylation, formylation, and acylation of α-lithioalkenylsulfoximines, and 4) addition of Grignard reagents to α-formyl(acyl)alkenylsulfoximines. The sulfoximine group provided for high asymmetric induction in steps 1) and 4). RCDEM of the sulfoximine-substituted trienes with the second-generation Ru catalyst stereoselectively afforded the corresponding functionalized 7-11-membered carbocyles. RCDEM of diastereomeric silyloxy-substituted 1,6,12-trienes revealed an interesting difference in reactivity. While the (R)-diastereomer gave the 11-membered carbocyle, the (S)-diastereomer delivered in a cascade of cross metathesis and RCDEM 22-membered macrocycles. RCDEM of cyclic trienes furnished bicyclic carbocycles with a bicyclo[7.4.0]tridecane and bicyclo[9.4.0]pentadecane skeleton. Selective transformations of the sulfoximine- and bissilyloxy-substituted carbocycles were performed including deprotection, cross-coupling reaction and reduction of the sulfoximine moiety. Esterification of a sulfoximine-substituted homoallylic alcohol with unsaturated carboxylic acids gave the O-tethered trienes, RCDEM of which yielded the sulfoximine-substituted 9-11-membered lactones. RCEYM of a sulfoximine-substituted 1,7-dien-10-yne showed an unprecedented dichotomy in ring formation depending on the Ru catalyst. While the second-generation Ru catalyst gave the 9-membered exo 1,3-dienyl carbocycle, the first-generation Ru catalyst furnished a truncated 9-membered 1,3-dieny carbocycle having one CH(2) unit less than the dienyne.     

Dendrimer building toolkit: Model building and characterization of various dendrimer architectures

We have developed a graphical user interface based dendrimer builder toolkit (DBT) which can be used to generate the dendrimer configuration of desired generation for various dendrimer architectures. The validation of structures generated by this tool was carried out by studying the structural properties of two well known classes of dendrimers: ethylenediamine cored poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer, diaminobutyl cored poly(propylene imine) (PPI) dendrimer. Using full atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulation we have calculated the radius of gyration, shape tensor and monomer density distribution for PAMAM and PPI dendrimer at neutral and high pH. A good agreement between the available simulation and experimental (small angle X‐ray and neutron scattering; SAXS, SANS) results and calculated radius of gyration was observed. With this validation we have used DBT to build another new class of nitrogen cored poly(propyl ether imine) dendrimer and study it's structural features using all atomistic MD simulation. DBT is a versatile tool and can be easily used to generate other dendrimer structures with different chemistry and topology. The use of general amber force field to describe the intra‐molecular interactions allows us to integrate this tool easily with the widely used molecular dynamics software AMBER. This makes our tool a very useful utility which can help to facilitate the study of dendrimer interaction with nucleic acids, protein and lipid bilayer for various biological applications. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Influence of surface mass transfer on mixed convection flows over non-isothermal horizontal flat plates

Non-similar solution of a steady mixed convection flow over a horizontal flat plate in the presence of surface mass transfer (suction or injection) is obtained when there is power-law variation in surface temperature. The surface temperature is assumed to vary as a power of the axial coordinate measured from the leading edge of the plate. A non-similar mixed convection parameter is considered which covers the whole convection regime, namely from pure free convection to pure forced convection. Numerical results are reported here to account the effects of Prandtl number, surface temperature, surface mass transfer parameter (suction or injection) on velocity and temperature profiles, and skin friction and heat transfer coefficients.