Understanding Reaction Dynamics in Coordination Chemistry—Application of High Pressure Techniques

In order to understand the dynamics of chemical reactions in general, detailed information on electronic, structural and kinetic properties is required. The key questions on how chemical reactions actually occur can in many cases only be answered in terms of information obtained from kinetic studies. In conventional kinetic studies of chemical reactions in solution, the variables usually selected include concentration, acidity, solvent, and temperature. In recent years, pressure has become an additional selected variable in such studies. It enables the measurement of the volume of activation and the construction of reaction volume profiles and thus assists in the elucidation of the underlying mechanism; it also completes the comprehension of reaction kinetics by adding another kinetic parameter that the suggested reaction mechanism must account for. Furthermore, the volume of activation is the only transition state property that can be correlated with the corresponding ground state property in an experimentally simple manner. In this paper, the insights so gained in our understanding of the dynamics of reactions involving coordination complexes will be presented. Such reactions are of fundamental interest to chemists since they often form the basis of catalytic, biological, environmental and energy related processes. Any additional information that will add to the understanding of the reaction dynamics is therefore of exceptional importance.     

Studies on synthesis and molecular dynamics simulation of dendrimers containing amino acids and peptides

A series of poly(ether-amide) dendrimers with amino acids and peptides as the peripheral functional groups was synthesized, and their structures were confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) spectrometry. Molecular dynamics simulation of the peptide dendrimers in solution was performed, indicating that, the prior conformations of the dendrimers were atom number dependent, i.e., with the increases of the atom number, the prior conformations were more spherical. Also, the amino acid α-C atom radial distribution indicated that, with larger peripheral groups, more back-folding of the dendrimers occurred. __________ Translated from Acta Chimica Sinica, 2007, 65(1): 21–26 [译自: 化学 通报]     

Protein dynamics tightly connected to the dynamics of surrounding and internal water molecules.

Proteins are key components of biological cells. For example, enzymes catalyze biochemical reactions, membrane transporters are responsible for uptake and release of critical and superfluous components from the cell environment, and structural proteins are responsible for the stability of the cell wall and cytoskeleton. Many of the diverse protein functions involve dynamic transitions ranging from small local atomic displacements up to large allosteric conformational changes. In any conformation, proteins are in contact with the universal solvent medium of cells, water. Water not only surrounds proteins but is often an integral part of proteins and also is involved in key mechanistic steps. This Minireview discusses recent experimental and theoretical results on the role of water for protein dynamics and function.     

GROMACS: fast, flexible, and free

This article describes the software suite GROMACS (Groningen MAchine for Chemical Simulation) that was developed at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, in the early 1990s. The software, written in ANSI C, originates from a parallel hardware project, and is well suited for parallelization on processor clusters. By careful optimization of neighbor searching and of inner loop performance, GROMACS is a very fast program for molecular dynamics simulation. It does not have a force field of its own, but is compatible with GROMOS, OPLS, AMBER, and ENCAD force fields. In addition, it can handle polarizable shell models and flexible constraints. The program is versatile, as force routines can be added by the user, tabulated functions can be specified, and analyses can be easily customized. Nonequilibrium dynamics and free energy determinations are incorporated. Interfaces with popular quantum-chemical packages (MOPAC, GAMES-UK, GAUSSIAN) are provided to perform mixed MM/QM simulations. The package includes about 100 utility and analysis programs. GROMACS is in the public domain and distributed (with source code and documentation) under the GNU General Public License. It is maintained by a group of developers from the Universities of Groningen, Uppsala, and Stockholm, and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz. Its Web site is http://www.gromacs.org.     

Ion Association in Lanthanide Chloride Solutions

A better understanding of the solution chemistry of the lanthanide (Ln) salts in water would have wide ranging implications in materials processing, waste management, element tracing, medicine and many more fields. This is particularly true for minerals processing, given governmental concerns about lanthanide security of supply and the drive to identify environmentally sustainable processing routes. Despite much effort, even in simple systems, the mechanisms and thermodynamics of Ln^III association with small anions remain unclear. In the present study, molecular dynamics (MD), using a newly developed force field, provide new insights into LnCl₃(aq) solutions. The force field accurately reproduces the structure and dynamics of Nd³⁺, Gd³⁺ and Er³⁺ in water when compared to calculations using density functional theory (DFT). Adaptive-bias MD simulations show that the mechanisms for ion pairing change from dissociative to associative exchange depending upon cation size. Thermodynamics of association reveal that whereas ion pairing is favourable, the equilibrium distribution of species at low concentration is dominated by weakly bound solvent-shared and solvent-separated ion pairs, rather than contact ion pairs, reconciling a number of contrasting observations of Ln^III–Cl association in the literature. In addition, we show that the thermodynamic stabilities of a range of inner sphere and outer sphere coordination complexes are comparable and that the kinetics of anion binding to cations may control solution speciation distributions beyond ion pairs. The techniques adopted in this work provide a framework with which to investigate more complex solution chemistries of cations in water.     

超临界流体技术在制备药物输送系统中的应用

超临界流体技术以其特有的优点成为引人注目的制备药物细微粒子及控制释放的药物输送系统的方法。本文介绍了超临界流体沉淀技术的概念、进展及相关的应用。     

Correlation between excess adsorption data measured for solvent mixture/adsorbent systems and RM values obtained for different solutes chromatographed in binary mobile phases

This paper concerns the application of excess adsorption isotherms, measured for solvent mixture/adsorbent systems, to the characterization of TLC data. For this purpose the excess adsorption isotherms for three liquid mixtures: cyclohexane/ benzene, benzene/acetone, and carbon tetrachloride/ethyl acetate on silica gel at 20°C have been measured. These mixtures have been used as binary mobile phases in TLC measurements. It has been shown for a given solute in binary mobile phase that the quantity R_M is a simple function of the excess adsorption. Parameters of this function have been used to characterize chromatographic systems with binary mobile phases.     

Synthesis and neel temperature determination of ferrites from the CuO−ZnO−Fe2O3 system

Conditions were established and individual and mixed ferrites with the general formula Cu_xZn_1?xFe₂O₄ (x=0; 0.1; 0.2; 0.3; 0.4; 0.5; 0.6; 0.7; 0.8; 1.0) were synthesized from the CuO?ZnO?Fe₂O₃ system. X-ray phase analysis, Mössbauer spectroscopy and microscopic examinations revealed that the obtained ferrites are monophase samples. A magnetic device was attached to the Q-Derivatograph (MOM, Hungary) and successfully used for sample investigation in a magnetic field, and in particular for Curie (Neel) temperature determination. The ferrite composition and the thermal treatment conditions were shown to correlate with the Neel temperature of the synthesized ferrites.     

有机-无机纳米复合材料光谱与电子性质研究进展

有机-无机纳米复合材料的研究在当前纳米科学技术的发展中占有重要地位，开创了材料与催化科学研究的新纪元。自从10年前首次合成纳米孔无机材料MCM-41至今，该领域研究不断深入，已展现出广阔的应用前景。当客体有机分子分散于纳米孔道内部时，其分子性质将产生明显变化。本文结合作者近期研究成果，力图从实验与理论两方面阐明在纳米复合体系中客体分子性质变化的原因。     

外加盐作用形成的正负离子表面活性剂双水相

癸基三乙基溴化铵-癸基磺酸钠（C10NE-C10SO3）等摩尔混合均相体系（即使在表面活性剂总浓度高达0.2 mol•L－1时仍然可形成稳定的均相溶液）在外加盐NaF、Na2SO4和Na3PO4的作用下可自发分离成两个水相（双水相）.研究了该类双水相体系的形成、相行为及其对牛血清蛋白（BSA）的分配，并与普通的正负离子表面活性剂混合双水相体系进行了比较.结果表明，该类双水相体系克服了普通的正负离子表面活性剂混合双水相体系的一些不足，具有一些独特的优点.该类双水相体系的相行为可以通过外加盐进行调控,通过外加盐的种类来调控和优化BSA的分配行为.图1表2参8