Posts Tagged ‘lowest energy’

Molecule orbitals as indicators of reactivity: bromoallene.

Thursday, September 1st, 2016

Bromoallene is a pretty simple molecule, with two non-equivalent double bonds. How might it react with an electrophile, say dimethyldioxirane (DMDO) to form an epoxide?[1] Here I explore the difference between two different and very simple approaches to predicting its reactivity. bromoallene

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References

  1. D. Christopher Braddock, A. Mahtey, H.S. Rzepa, and A.J.P. White, "Stable bromoallene oxides", Chemical Communications, vol. 52, pp. 11219-11222, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C6CC06395K

A molecular balance for dispersion energy?

Sunday, February 7th, 2016

The geometry of cyclo-octatetraenes differs fundamentally from the lower homologue benzene in exhibiting slow (nuclear) valence bond isomerism rather than rapid (electronic) bond-equalising resonance. In 1992 Anderson and Kirsch[1] exploited this property to describe a simple molecular balance for estimating how two alkyl substituents on the ring might interact via the (currently very topical) mechanism of dispersion (induced-dipole-induced-dipole) attractions. These electron correlation effects are exceptionally difficult to model using formal quantum mechanics and are nowadays normally replaced by more empirical functions such as Grimme's D3BJ correction.[2] Here I explore aspects of how the small molecule below might be used to investigate the accuracy of such estimates of dispersion energies.

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References

  1. J.E. Anderson, and P.A. Kirsch, "Structural equilibria determined by attractive steric interactions. 1,6-Dialkylcyclooctatetraenes and their bond-shift and ring inversion investigated by dynamic NMR spectroscopy and molecular mechanics calculations", Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions 2, pp. 1951, 1992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/P29920001951
  2. S. Grimme, S. Ehrlich, and L. Goerigk, "Effect of the damping function in dispersion corrected density functional theory", Journal of Computational Chemistry, vol. 32, pp. 1456-1465, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcc.21759

How to predict the regioselectivity of epoxide ring opening.

Sunday, April 28th, 2013

I recently got an email from a student asking about the best way of rationalising epoxide ring opening using some form of molecule orbitals. This reminded me of the famous experiment involving propene epoxide.[1]

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References

  1. H.C. Chitwood, and B.T. Freure, "The Reaction of Propylene Oxide with Alcohols", Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 68, pp. 680-683, 1946. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja01208a047