Relative Thermodynamic Stabilities of Isomeric Dimethyl Acetals Derived from 2-Acetyltetrahydrofuran. An Experimental and Computational Study

In the presence of an acid catalyst, the dimethyl acetal of 2-acetyltetrahydrofuran (1) is converted into a mixture of three isomeric acetals composed of the reactant and two diastereomers of 2-methoxy-2-(1-methoxyethyl)tetrahydrofuran (2). The relative thermodynamic stabilities of these acetals have now been determined by chemical equilibration. The least stable isomer is 1, in the liquid phase 4–6 kJ mol^–1 less stable than the two diastereomers. The geometry-optimized structures and relative energies of the title compounds were also studied by theoretical calculations (ab initio and DFT). Comparison of the theoretically determined relative stabilities of the diastereomers with the corresponding experimental data suggests the more volatile (and more stable) diastereomer to exist as a racemic mixture of the (R,S) and (S,R) configurations.     

Preparation of 1‐substituted‐5‐[(2‐oxo‐2‐phenyl)ethyl]imidazoles

New high yield preparation methods were developed for the pharmaceutically interesting compounds, 1‐benzyl‐, 1‐methyl‐, and 1H‐5‐[(2‐oxo‐2‐phenyl)ethyl]imidazoles 1a‐c , respectively. The title compounds were synthesized by four different methods using various starting materials. Two of the methods involved transformation reactions of the key intermediates, 1‐substituted‐5‐[(2‐nitro‐2‐phenyl)ethenyl]imidazoles 2a‐c and 1‐substituted‐5‐[(2‐nitro‐2‐phenyl)ethyl]imidazoles 3a‐c , while the other two utilized the oxidation of 1‐substituted‐5‐[(2‐hydroxy‐2‐phenyl)ethyl]imidazoles 4a‐c , with chromic oxide, and the umpolung reaction of benzaldehyde followed by a condensation reaction of the umpolung intermediate with imidazolecarboxaldehydes 6a‐c.     

Preparation of amino acid nanoparticles at varying saturation conditions in an aerosol flow reactor

In this article, we describe the synthesis of new and ion-selective nanofiltration (NF) membranes using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers and hyperbranched polyethylenimine (PEI) as building blocks. These new nanofibrous composite (NFC) membranes consist of crosslinked hyperbranched PEI networks supported by PVDF nanofibrous scaffolds that are electrospun onto commercial PVDF microfiltration (MF) membranes. A major objective of our study was to fabricate positively charged NF membranes that can be operated at low pressure with high water flux and improved rejection for monovalent cations. To achieve this, we investigated the effects of crosslinker chemistry on membrane properties (morphology, composition, hydrophobicity, and zeta potential) and membrane performance (salt rejection and permeate flux) in aqueous solutions (2,000?mg/L) of four salts (NaCl, MgCl₂, Na₂SO₄, and MgSO₄) at pH 4, 6, and 8. We found that an NFC?CPVDF membrane with a network of PEI macromolecules crosslinked with trimesoyl chloride has a high water flux (~30?L?m^?2?h^?1) and high rejections for MgCl₂ (~88 %) and NaCl (~65 %) at pH 6 using a pressure of 7?bar. The overall results of our study suggest that PVDF nanofibers and hyperbranched PEI are promising building blocks for the fabrication of high performance NF membranes for water purification.     

In Situ Observation of C−C Coupling and Step Poisoning During the Growth of Hydrocarbon Chains on Ni(111)

The synthesis of high-value fuels and plastics starting from small hydrocarbon molecules plays a central role in the current transition towards renewable energy. However, the detailed mechanisms driving the growth of hydrocarbon chains remain to a large extent unknown. Here we investigated the formation of hydrocarbon chains resulting from acetylene polymerization on a Ni(111) model catalyst surface. Exploiting X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy up to near-ambient pressures, the intermediate species and reaction products have been identified. Complementary in situ scanning tunneling microscopy observations shed light onto the C−C coupling mechanism. While the step edges of the metal catalyst are commonly assumed to be the active sites for the C−C coupling, we showed that the polymerization occurs instead on the flat terraces of the metallic surface.     

Asymptotic Dirichlet Problem for $\mathcal {A}$-Harmonic Functions on Manifolds with Pinched Curvature

We study the asymptotic Dirichlet problem for \(\mathcal {A}\)-harmonic functions on a Cartan-Hadamard manifold whose radial sectional curvatures outside a compact set satisfy an upper bound \( K(P)\le - \frac {1+\varepsilon }{r(x)^{2} \log r(x)} \) and a pointwise pinching condition \( | K(P) |\le C_{K}| K(P^{\prime }) | \) for some constants ε > 0 and C _K ≥ 1, where P and \(P^{\prime }\) are any 2-dimensional subspaces of T _x M containing the (radial) vector ?r(x) and r(x) = d(o, x) is the distance to a fixed point o ∈ M. We solve the asymptotic Dirichlet problem with any continuous boundary data \(f\in C(\partial _{\infty } M)\). The results apply also to the Laplacian and p-Laplacian, \(1<p<\infty ,\) as special cases.     

Enthalpies of formation of olefinic ethers by G3(MP2)//B3LYP calculations

The gas‐phase enthalpies of formation at 298.15 K of a number of acyclic and cyclic olefinic ethers (mainly α,β‐unsaturated ethers), together with those of a few cyclic mono‐ and dienes, have been estimated by G3(MP2)//B3LYP calculations. In most cases, the computational and experimental data (if available) are in good mutual agreement. Whenever significant deviations between the experimental and computational data were found, the experimental enthalpies of formation arise from a single data source, and it appears that small experimental errors are embedded therein. A marked error was found in the experimental enthalpy of formation of 2‐chloroethyl ethyl ether, used in this work as a reagent for estimation of the enthalpy of formation of 2‐chloroethyl vinyl ether by an isodesmic reaction. Moreover, significant errors were also found in the literature values for the computational (B3LYP/6‐311G**) enthalpies of formation of several Me‐substituted derivatives of methyl vinyl ether. The present computational method, besides providing acceptable enthalpies of formation for unsaturated ethers, was also found to give accurate Δ_fH(g) values for cyclic mono‐ and dienes. Thus, the G3(MP2)//B3LYP computational method proved to be a valuable tool for investigating the energetics of olefinic ethers and hydrocarbons. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relative Stabilities and Molecular Structures of Isomeric Dihalobenzenes. A DFT Study

The molecular structures, total energies, and other computational data of benzene, and its monoand dihalogenated derivatives (halogen = F, Cl, Br) have been studied by DFT calculations. The main aim of the study was to estimate the relative stabilities (energies) of the ortho, meta, and para isomers of the six series of dihalobenzenes investigated. The computational data show that the ortho isomers always have the highest, and the meta isomers usually, but not always, the lowest total energies. Thus, 1,2-difluorobenzene is ca. 16.6 kJ mol^–1, and 1,4-difluorobenzene 2.5 kJ mol^–1 less stable than 1,3-difluorobenzene. Among the other isomeric dihalobenzenes, the differences in stability are less pronounced. For the dibromo-, dichloro-, and bromochlorobenzenes, the para compounds are calculated to be slightly (0.2–0.4 kJ mol^–1) more stable than their meta isomers. In addition to the thermochemical aspect of the study, the computational molecular structures of the halobenzenes are compared with available experimental data and discussed in terms of the substituent-induced deformation of the ideal geometry of the benzene ring. The computational electric dipole moments, especially for the fluorine-containing compounds, compare favorably with the respective experimental (gas-phase) values.     

Unifications,deunifications, and their complexity

The execution of a Prolog program can be viewed as a sequence of unifications and backtracks over unifications. We study the time requirement of executing a sequence of such operations (the unify-deunify problem). It is shown that the well-known set union problem is reducible to this problem, even in the case when no function symbols are allowed (the Datalog unify-deunify problem). As the set union problem requires nonlinear time on a large class of algorithms, the same holds for the unify-deunify problem. Thus the linearity of single unifications does not give a complete picture of the time complexity of Prolog primitives. We discuss the methods for executing sequences of Datalog unifications used in Prolog interpreters and show that some of them require even quadratic time in the worst case. Complementing these results, we show that if the number of variables occurring in one clause is bounded by a constant, then the Datalog unify-deunify problem can be solved in linear time.A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Third International Conference on Logic Programming, London, July 1986. This work was supported by the Academy of Finland and by TEKES.     

Relative thermodynamic stabilities of isomeric 1,2-dialkoxyethenes

The relative thermodynamic stabilities of the geometrical isomers of a number of 1,2-dialkoxyethenes have been determined by chemical equilibration in the neat liquid and in 1,4-dioxane solution with mercuric acetate as catalyst. From the variation of the value of the equilibrium constant with temperature, the thermodynamic parameters G , H , and S of theE Z isomerization were evaluated. In all cases theZ isomer proved to be thermodynamically the more stable species, its favor increasing with the bulkiness of the alkoxy groups. The thermodynamic data obtained for theEZ isomerization of 1,2-dimethoxyethene differ significantly from those reported in the literature. An attempt to correlate the experimental thermodynamic data with MM2 calculations for the title compounds as well as for 1,2-dimethoxypropenes is presented.