Archive for July, 2018

A Theoretical Method for Distinguishing X‐H Bond Activation Mechanisms.

Wednesday, July 25th, 2018

Consider the four reactions. The first two are taught in introductory organic chemistry as (a) a proton transfer, often abbreviated PT, from X to B (a base) and (b) a hydride transfer from X to A (an acid). The third example is taught as a hydrogen atom transfer or HAT from X to (in this example) O. Recently an article has appeared[1] citing an example of a fourth fundamental type (d), which is given the acronym cPCET which I will expand later. Here I explore this last type a bit further, in the context that X-H bond activations are currently a very active area of research.

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References

  1. J.E.M.N. Klein, and G. Knizia, "cPCET versus HAT: A Direct Theoretical Method for Distinguishing X–H Bond‐Activation Mechanisms", Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 57, pp. 11913-11917, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201805511

FAIR Data in Amsterdam – FAIR data points.

Wednesday, July 18th, 2018

FAIR is one of those acronyms that spreads rapidly, acquires a life of its own and can mean many things to different groups. A two-day event has just been held in Amsterdam to bring some of those groups from the chemical sciences together to better understand FAIR. Here I note a few items that caught my attention.

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Chemistry (and music) in the Park.

Thursday, July 12th, 2018

This last month, as a follow-up to the preceding post on the colour of flowers, I have been moonlighting by blogging elsewhere. Do go visit my “guerrilla blog” at perivalepark.london. Part of this project involves visiting two “physic or botanic” gardens, which originate from early 17th century explorations of herbs and other botanicals as medicines. Both are very old and their chemistry is indeed fascinating; more of which later.

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