Inter- and intra-annular proton exchange in gaseous benzylbenzenium ions (protonated diphenylmethane)

Two distinct proton exchange reactions occur in metastable gaseous benzylbenzenium ions, generated by isobutane chemical ionization of diphenylmethane and four deuterium-labelled analogues. Whereas the proton ring-walk at the benzenium moiety is fast giving rise to a completely random intraannular proton exchange, the interannular proton exchange is surprisingly slow and competes with the elimination of benzene. A kinetic isotope effect of k_H/k_D= 5 has been determined for the interannular proton transfer, and a particularly high energy barrier of 50–75 kJ mol^?1 has been estimated. These observations are attributed to steric restrictions of the ring-to-ring proton transfer in benzylbenzenium ions and contrasted to the fast interannular proton exchange in the higher homologues.     

Mass spectrometric fragmentation of isomeric 2-alkyl-substituted 1,3-indandiones and 3-alkylidenephthalides: a seven-step consecutive isomerization of regular and distonic molecular radical cations

The electron impact-induced fragmentation of 2,2-dimethyl- and 2-ethyl-1,3-indandione, 1 and 2, and their isomers, 3-isopropylidene- and 3-propylidenephthalide, 3 and 4, respectively, was studied in detail by mass-analysed ion kinetic energy (MIKE) and collision-induced dissociation (CID-MIKE) spectrometry, including ²H and ¹³C. labelled analogues of 1 and 2. In all regimes of internal energy, the molecular ions 1^+. ? 4^+. interconvert by up to seven consecutive, reversible isomerization steps prior to the main fragmentation processes, viz. loss of CH₃^. and C₂H₄. 1,3-Indandione and 3-methylenephthalide ions with identical alkylidene moieties (i.e. 1^+.?3^+. and 2^+.?4^+.) equilibrate rapidly and completely prior to fragmentation, whereas these pairs of isomers interconvert only slowly via a five-step rearrangement of the indandione ions 1^+.?2^+.. Distinct from the behaviour of simpler ionized carbonyl species, a 1,2-C shift of a (formally) neutral carbonyl group is found to occur along with that of a protonated one. Also distinct from simpler cases, methyl loss does not take place from the ionized enol intermediates formed within the interconversion 1^+.?2^+. of the diketone ions but rather from the n-propylidenephthalide ions 4^+.. This follows from CID-MIKE spectrometry of the [M ? CH₃]⁺ ions of 1–4 and two reference C₁₀H₇O₂⁺ (m/z 159) ions of authentic structures (protonated 2-methylene-1,3-indandione and protonated 1,4-naphthoquinone). The characteristic CID fragmentation of the C₁₀H₇O₂⁺ ions is rationalized. Finally, the multistep isomerization of ionized 1,3-indandiones apparently also extends to higher homologues [e.g. 5^+. from 2-ethyl-2-methyl-1,3-indandione (5) and 6^+. from 2,2-diethyl-1,3-indandione (6)]: the ionized phthaloyl group of 1,3-indandione radical cations 1^+., 2^+., 5^+. and 6^+., originally attached with its two acyl functionalities to the same carbon of the aliphatic chain, performs, in fact, a ‘multi-step migration’.     

On air entrainment in coatings

A series of experiments that clarify how air bubbles become entrained into coatings are described. The contact line dynamics at the air-liquid interface surrounding a fiber is characterized for a typical coating die operating under atmospheric and pressurized conditions. Glycerin and other viscous liquids are used to reveal that a critical fiber speed exists at which air entrainment begins. The observations confirm that the critical capillary number Ca(c) depends on the physical properties of the coating material, in the form of the Morton number. When the liquid supply is pressurized, the experiments show that adjusting the pressure can stabilize the displaced free surface interface at a prescribed location. Controlling the meniscus location in this way eliminates air entrainment. The threshold occurs when the applied pressure balances the shear exerted on the coating by the moving fiber. Using this approach it is possible to eliminate air entrainment and attain stable wetting at very large values of the capillary number, e.g., Ca congruent with 50.     

The activation energy of the skeletal isomerization in the radical cations of toluene and cycloheptatriene by mass spectrometry of their 2-phenylethyl derivatives

The Unimolecular mass spectrometric fragmentations of the molecular ions of 1,3-diphenylpropane, 1-(7-cycloheptatrienyl)-2-phenylethane and the 1-phenyl-2-tolylethanes and their [d₅]phenyl analogues have been investigated by metastable ion techniques and measurements of ionization and appearance energies. By comparing the formation of [C₇H₇]⁺, [C₇H₈]⁺?, [C₈H₈]⁺? and [C₈H₉]⁺ it is shown that the molecular ions of the four diaryl isomers do not undergo ring expansion reactions of the aromatic nuclei prior to these fragmentations. Conversely, the molecular ions of the cycloheptatrienyl isomer suffer in part a contraction of the 7-membered ring. From these results and from the measured ionization and appearance energies lower limits to the activation energies of these skeletal isomerizations have been estimated yielding E > 33±5 kcal mol^?1 formonoalkylbenzene, E > 20 2±5 kc mol^?1 for 7-alkylcycloheptatriene and E > 40±5 kcal mol^?1 for dialkylvbenzene positive radical ions. Upper limits can be deduced from literature evidence yielding E < 45 kcal mol^?1 for monoalkylbenzene and E < 53 kcal 4mol^?1 for dialkylbenzene positive radical ions. The activation energy thus estimated for monoalkylbenzene is in excellent agreement with the recently calculated value(s) for the toluene ion.     

Automatic ignition of the sample vs. use of the bunsen burner in the rapid silver absorbent method for sulfur

Summary Comparable series of sulfur determinations by the silver absorbent method were performed on four test samples. One series was carried out with automatic ignition using a stationary electric sample burner during a constant time period for each analysis; the other series by igniting the sample with a Bunsen burner held in the hand until the last trace of sample disappeared.There was no obviously assured difference in the quality of the analytical figures obtained by the two methods of sample ignition. Statistical analysis of the data, however, disclosed that the automatic burner did actually give a slight improvement in precision over the hand burner although the ultimate limit of accuracy was the same in each case.

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Zusammenfassung Mit vier reinen Verbindungen wurden Reihenbestimmungen des Schwefels durch Verbrennung und Absorption des Schwefeltrioxyds an Silberwolle so ausgeführt, daß eine Reihe von Verbrennungen mit dem von Hand geführten Bunsenbrenner immer einer entsprechenden Reihe von Bestimmungen gegenübergestellt werden konnte, bei der die Verbrennung mit einem ruhenden, automatisch regulierten elektrischen Heizkörper erfolgte.Die Resultate der automatischen Verbrennungen zeigten eine so geringe Verbesserung gegenüber jenen, die durch Verbrennung mit dem handregulierten Bunsenbrenner erhalten wurden, daß der augenscheinliche Unterschied lediglich dem Zufall zugeschrieben werden könnte. Eine statistische Untersuchung zeigte, daß die automatische Verbrennung tatsächlich eine geringfügige Verbesserung der Präzision gibt, ohne jedoch die Genauigkeit der arithmetischen Mittel der Versuchsreihen merkbar zu ändern.

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Résumé On a effectué des déterminations de soufre en séries comparables par la méthode d'absorption par l'argent sur quatre échantillons types. L'une des séries comportait une combustion automatique à l'aide d'un brûleur électrique fixe pendant un temps constant pour chaque analyse. L'autre série comportait l'emploi d'un becBunsen conduit à la main pour la combustion de l'échantillon jusqu'à disparition de ses dernières traces.On n'a constaté aucune différence marquée dans la qualité des résultats analytiques obtenus par l'une ou l'autre méthode de combustion de l'échantillon. L'analyse statistique des résultats obtenus fait cependant apparaître une légère amélioration de la précision lorsque le brûleur automatique est substitué au brûleur à main bien que les écarts extrêmes obtenus soient les mêmes pour chacun des cas.

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To Prof. Dr.Hans Lieb at his 70th birthday.     

From Nongelating to Gelating: Synthesis and Structural Self‐Assembling Property Relationships of a Homologous Series of Oligo(amide–triazole)s

A homologous series of oligo(amide–triazole)s (OAT) [ OAT‐CO₂H‐2 n and OAT‐COPrg‐(2 n +1) ] with an increasing number of primary amide (CONH) and triazole hydrogen‐bonding functionalities was prepared by an iterative synthetic procedure. It was found that their self‐assembly and thermoreversible gelation strength had a strong correlation to the number of hydrogen‐bonding moieties in the oligomers. There also existed a threshold value of the number of CONH units, above which all the oligomers became organogelators. Hence, oligomers with ≤4 CONH units are devoid of intermolecular hydrogen bonding and also non‐organogelating, whereas those that contain >4 CONH units show intermolecular association and organogelating properties. For the organogelators, the T_gel value increases monotonically with increasing number of CONH units. On the basis of FTIR measurements, both the CONH and triazole C? H groups were involved in the hydrogen‐bonding process. A mixed xerogel that consisted of a 1:1 weight ratio of two oligomers of different lengths ( OAT‐CO₂H‐6 and OAT‐CO₂H‐12 ) was found to show microphase segregation according to differential scanning calorimetry, thus indicating that oligomers that bear a different number of hydrogen‐bonding units exhibited self‐sorting to maximize the extent of intermolecular hydrogen bonding in the xerogel state.     

Acceleration of the cationic polymerization of an epoxy with hexanediol

Thin films of 3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl 3',4'-epoxycyclohexane carboxylate were UV irradiated (1.1 J cm^-2) under isothermal conditions ranging from 0 to 50°C. Under these conditions the polymerization advanced quickly but only to a conversion level of less than 10% before the reaction rate slowed by more than an order of magnitude. This drop off in rate was not caused by the glass transition temperature, T _g, reaching or exceeding the reaction temperature, T _rxn, since the epoxide's T _g remained at least 40°C below T _rxn. Raising the sample temperature above 60°C caused a sharp increase in the conversion level. At 100°C conversion exceeds 80% and the ultimate T _g approaches 190°C. The addition of 10 mass% 1,6-hexanediol, HD, to the epoxy caused the conversion at room temperature to quintuple over the level obtained without the alcohol present. The heat liberated from this alcohol epoxy blend during cure on a UV conveyor belt system caused the sample's temperature to increase by about 100°C above ambient whereas the epoxy alone under these conditions only experienced a modest temperature rise of about 26°C. If the amount of HD in the blend is increased above 10% the heat of reaction at 23°C decreases due to HD being trapped in a nonreactive crystalline phase. Boosting reaction temperatures above 50°C melts the HD crystals and yields significantly improved conversion ratios. As the level of alcohol blended with the epoxy is raised its ultimate T _g is lowered and when the concentration of alcohol in the blend nears 30 mass%T _g drops below room temperature. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.