A Practical General Method for the Preparation of Long Acenes

The field of long acenes, the narrowest of the zig-zag graphene nanoribbons, has been an area of significant interest in the past decade because of its potential applications in organic electronics, spintronics and plasmonics. However the low solubility and high reactivity of these compounds has so far hindered their preparation on large scales. We report here a concise strategy for the synthesis of higher acenes through Diels–Alder condensation of arynes with a protected tetraene ketone. After deprotection by cleavage of the ketal, the obtained monoketone precursors cleanly yield the corresponding acenes through quantitative cheletropic thermal decarbonylation in the solid state, at moderate temperatures of 155 to 205 °C. This approach allows the preparation of heptacene, benzo[a]hexacene, cis- and trans-dibenzopentacene and offers a valuable new method for the synthesis of even larger acenes.     

Natural bond orbital analysis in the ONETEP code: Applications to large protein systems

First principles electronic structure calculations are typically performed in terms of molecular orbitals (or bands), providing a straightforward theoretical avenue for approximations of increasing sophistication, but do not usually provide any qualitative chemical information about the system. We can derive such information via post‐processing using natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis, which produces a chemical picture of bonding in terms of localized Lewis‐type bond and lone pair orbitals that we can use to understand molecular structure and interactions. We present NBO analysis of large‐scale calculations with the ONETEP linear‐scaling density functional theory package, which we have interfaced with the NBO 5 analysis program. In ONETEP calculations involving thousands of atoms, one is typically interested in particular regions of a nanosystem whilst accounting for long‐range electronic effects from the entire system. We show that by transforming the Non‐orthogonal Generalized Wannier Functions of ONETEP to natural atomic orbitals, NBO analysis can be performed within a localized region in such a way that ensures the results are identical to an analysis on the full system. We demonstrate the capabilities of this approach by performing illustrative studies of large proteins—namely, investigating changes in charge transfer between the heme group of myoglobin and its ligands with increasing system size and between a protein and its explicit solvent, estimating the contribution of electronic delocalization to the stabilization of hydrogen bonds in the binding pocket of a drug‐receptor complex, and observing, in situ, the n → π* hyperconjugative interactions between carbonyl groups that stabilize protein backbones. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How the Generalized Anomeric Effect Influences the Conformational Preference

The generalized anomeric effect refers to the conformational preference of a gauche structure over an anti structure for molecules with a R‐X‐C‐Y moiety. Whereas there are conflicting reports regarding the origin of this ubiquitous effect, a general consensus is that both the steric (more specifically electrostatic) and hyperconjugative interactions contribute. Here we employed the block‐localized wavefunction (BLW) method, which is the simplest variant of ab initio valence bond (VB) theory and can define reference electron‐localized states self‐consistently, to evaluate the magnitude of the hyperconjugation effect in a number of acyclic molecules exhibiting the generalized anomeric effect. The BLW‐based energy decomposition analysis revealed that both the steric and hyperconjugation effects contribute to the conformational preferences of methoxymethyl fluoride and methoxymethyl chlorides. But for the other systems under investigation, including methanediol, methanediamine, aminomethanol and dimethoxymethane, the hyperconjugative interactions play a negative role in the conformational preferences and the steric effect is solely responsible for the generalized anomeric effect.     

Electrophilic Alkylations of Vinylsilanes: A Comparison of α‐ and β‐Silyl Effects

Kinetics of the reactions of benzhydrylium ions (Aryl₂CH⁺) with the vinylsilanes H₂C?C(CH₃)(SiR₃), H₂C?C(Ph)(SiR₃), and (E)‐PhCH?CHSiMe₃ have been measured photometrically in dichloromethane solution at 20 °C. All reactions follow second‐order kinetics, and the second‐order rate constants correlate linearly with the electrophilicity parameters E of the benzhydrylium ions, thus allowing us to include vinylsilanes in the benzhydrylium‐based nucleophilicity scale. The vinylsilane H₂C?C(CH₃)(SiMe₃), which is attacked by electrophiles at the CH₂ group, reacts one order of magnitude faster than propene, indicating that α‐silyl‐stabilization of the intermediate carbenium ion is significantly weaker than α‐methyl stabilization because H₂C?C(CH₃)₂ is 10³ times more reactive than propene. trans‐β‐(Trimethylsilyl)styrene, which is attacked by electrophiles at the silylated position, is even somewhat less reactive than styrene, showing that the hyperconjugative stabilization of the developing carbocation by the β‐silyl effect is not yet effective in the transition state. As a result, replacement of vinylic hydrogen atoms by SiMe₃ groups affect the nucleophilic reactivities of the corresponding C?C bonds only slightly, and vinylsilanes are significantly less nucleophilic than structurally related allylsilanes.     

Targeting the Rich Conformational Landscape of N-Allylmethylamine Using Rotational Spectroscopy and Quantum Mechanical Calculations

The highly variable conformational landscape of N-allylmethylamine (AMA) was investigated using Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy aided by high-level theoretical calculations to understand the energy relationship governing the interconversion between nine stable conformers. Spectroscopically, transitions belonging to four low energy conformers were identified and their hyperfine patterns owing to the ¹⁴N quadrupolar nucleus were unambiguously resolved. The rotational spectrum of the global minimum geometry, conformer I, shows an additional splitting associated with a tunneling motion through an energy barrier interconnecting its enantiomeric forms. A two-step tunneling trajectory is proposed by finding transition state structures corresponding to the allyl torsion and NH inversion. Natural bond orbital and non-covalent interaction analyses reveal that an interplay between steric and hyperconjugative effects rules the conformational preferences of AMA.     

亲核性1,2-重排为何迁移基团的构型保持不变*

亲核性1,2-重排反应是有机化学的重要反应之一,重排中离去基团的离去和迁移基团的迁移步骤既可以是分步的,也可以是协同的,但是迁移基团的构型始终保持不变。本文用超共轭效应和反应过程中有机立体电子效应解释了此现象,掌握一般规律,希望能够从教学上便于教师讲授和学生学习理解。     

Electron Density Analysis of Hyperconjugation

Hyperconjugation is analyzed through the electron density of orbitals responsible for hyperconjugative interactions, which cannot be detected by means of conventional electron‐density‐based calculations. This interaction is detected through the π electron density topology, by excluding σ electron density from the total. As the presence of the hyperconjugation phenomenon in carbocation systems is well understood, several carbocations are benchmarked, and the results show that the positive carbon atom establishes a hyperconjugative critical point with the adjacent methyl group(s). Also, π localization and delocalization indices are employed to support the conclusions made by the topological analysis.