A Simple Primary Amide for the Selective Recovery of Gold from Secondary Resources

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) such as mobile phones contains a plethora of metals of which gold is by far the most valuable. Herein a simple primary amide is described that achieves the selective separation of gold from a mixture of metals typically found in mobile phones by extraction into toluene from an aqueous HCl solution; unlike current processes, reverse phase transfer is achieved simply using water. Phase transfer occurs by dynamic assembly of protonated and neutral amides with [AuCl₄]^? ions through hydrogen bonding in the organic phase, as shown by EXAFS, mass spectrometry measurements, and computational calculations, and supported by distribution coefficient analysis. The fundamental chemical understanding gained herein should be integral to the development of metal‐recovery processes, in particular through the use of dynamic assembly processes to build complexity from simplicity.     

ESI‐MS/MS of expanded porphyrins: a look into their structure and aromaticity

Electrospray mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry was used to investigate the gas‐phase properties of protonated expanded porphyrins, in order to correlate those with their structure and conformation. We have selected five expanded meso‐pentafluorophenyl porphyrins, respectively, a pair of oxidized/reduced fused pentaphyrins (22 and 24 π electrons), a pair of oxidized/reduced regular hexaphyrins (26 and 28 π electrons) and a regular doubly N‐fused hexaphyrin (28 π electrons). The gas‐phase behavior of the protonated species of oxidized and reduced expanded porphyrins is different. The oxidized species (aromatic Hückel systems) fragment more extensively, mainly by the loss of two HF molecules. The reduced species (Möbius aromatic or Möbius‐like aromatic systems) fragment less than their oxidized counterparts because of their increased flexibility. The protonated regular doubly fused hexaphyrin (non‐aromatic Hückel system) shows the least fragmentation even at higher collision energies. In general, cyclization through losses of HF molecules decreases from the aromatic Hückel systems to Möbius aromatic or Möbius‐like aromatic systems to non‐aromatic Hückel systems and is related to an increase in conformational distortion. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rearrangement of a mesylate tropane intermediate in nucleophilic substitution reactions. Synthesis of aza-bicyclo[3.2.1]octane and aza-bicyclo[3.2.2]nonane ethers,imides, and amines

Nucleophilic substitution of 2beta-mesyloxymethyl-N-methyl-3beta-p-tolyl-tropane intermediate with alkoxides, metal imides, or amines was found to lead not only to the expected bicyclo[3.2.1]octane (tropane) ether, imide, and amine derivatives but also to unexpected bicyclo[3.2.2]nonane derivatives. When alkoxides were used as nucleophile, only the rearranged bicyclo[3.2.2]nonane structure was obtained, whereas the use of amines or imides as nucleophile afforded a mixture of the two structures. The bicyclo[3.2.2]nonane structure was assigned by NMR analysis.     

Investigation of carbon dioxide modified supercritical and near supercritical carrier streams for flow injection systems

Since flow injection (FI) is a dilution technique, efforts have been undertaken to minimize online dilution or dispersion. Solutes in supercritical fluids exhibit increased diffusion coefficients which have been shown to decrease dispersion of the sample zone. This work investigates the use of supercritical fluids (or CO₂ modified fluids) as carrier streams for FI. Both a non-reacting tracer and an online chemical reaction were employed to investigate the behavior of solutes in supercritical and near critical systems. Further, these results are compared to those obtained in the system studied with a conventional carrier stream. Plots of peak response vs% CO₂ modifier increase with a sharp break at moderate modifier composition (20–30%). Plots of peak variance vs% CO₂ modifier show decreased variance with increasing % modifier. The system was also optimized with regards to temperature and pressure. The optimized system displayed improved limits of detection and decreased variance relative to 0% CO₂ modifier carrier streams.