Aerobic Aliphatic Hydroxylation Reactions by Copper Complexes: A Simple Clip-and-Cleave Concept.

A simple imine clip-and-cleave concept has been developed for the selective hydroxylation of non-activated CH bonds in aliphatic aldehydes with dioxygen through a copper complex. The synthetic protocol involves reaction of a substrate aldehyde with N,N-diethyl-ethylendiamine to give the corresponding imine, which is used as a bidentate donor ligand forming a copper(I) complex with [Cu(CH3 CN)4 ][CF3 SO3 ]. After exposure of the reaction mixture to dioxygen acidic cleavage and aqueous workup liberates the corresponding ß-hydroxylated aldehyde. The concept for the hydroxylation of trimethylacetaldehyde as well as adamantane and diamantane 1-carbaldehydes was investigated and the corresponding ß-hydroxy aldehydes were obtained with high selectivities. The results of low temperature stopped-flow measurements indicate the formation of a bis(µ-oxido)dicopper complex as reactive intermediate. According to density functional theory (DFT, RI-BLYP-D3/def2-TZVP(SDD)/ COSMO(CH2 Cl2 )//RI-PBE-D3/def2-TZVP(SDD)) computations CH bonds suitably predisposed to the [Cu2 O2 ]2+ core undergo hydroxylation in a concerted step with particularly low activation barriers, which explains the experimentally observed regioselectivities.

Defying Stereotypes with Nanodiamonds: Stable Primary Diamondoid Phosphines.

Direct unequal C-H bond difunctionalization of phosphorylated diamantane was achieved in high yield from the corresponding phosphonates. Reduction of the functionalized phosphonates provides access to novel primary and secondary alkyl/aryl diamantane phosphines. The prepared primary diamantyl phosphines are quite air stable compared to their adamantyl and especially alkyl or aryl analogues. This finding is corroborated by comparing the singly occupied molecular orbital energy levels of the corresponding phosphine radical cations obtained by density functional theory computations.

Beyond the corey reaction II: dimethylenation of sterically congested ketones.

Bulky methyl ketones show significantly decreased reactivities toward the Corey-Chaykovsky methylenation reagent dimethylsulfoxonium methylide (DMSM). The excess of base and temperature increase opens an alternative reaction channel that instead leads to the corresponding cyclopropyl ketones. Computations suggest that the initial reaction step involves the methylene group transfer from DMSM on the ketone enolate followed by the intramolecular cyclization. The key step is associated with a barrier of 22 ± 3 kcal mol(-1) and is driven by exothermic elimination of DMSO.

Stereospecific consecutive epoxide ring expansion with dimethylsulfoxonium methylide.

Consecutive ring-expansion reactions of oxiranes with dimethylsulfxonium methylide were studied experimentally and modeled computationally at the density functional theory (DFT) and second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) levels of theory utilizing a polarizable continuum model (PCM) to account for solvent effects. While the epoxide to oxetane ring expansion requires 13-17 kcal mol(-1) activation and occurs at elevated temperatures, the barriers for the ring expansions to oxolanes are higher (ca. 25 kcal mol(-1)) and require heating to 125 °C. Further expansions of these oxolanes to the six-membered oxanes are hampered by high barriers (ca. 40 kcal mol(-1)). We observe the complete conservation of the enantiomeric purities for the nucleophilic ring expansions of enantiomeric 2-mono- and 2,2-disubstituted epoxides and oxetanes with dimethylsulfoxonium methylide. This is a convenient general approach for the high-yielding preparation of optically active four- and five-membered cyclic ethers from oxiranes.

Simple preparation of diamondoid 1,3-dienes via oxetane ring opening.

The transformations of apical mono- and bisacetyl diamondoids to the respective oxetanes and subsequent acid-catalyzed ring opening/dehydration lead to diamondoidyl mono- and bis-1,3-dienes in high preparative yields.

Unconventional molecule-resolved current rectification in diamondoid-fullerene hybrids.

The unimolecular rectifier is a fundamental building block of molecular electronics. Rectification in single molecules can arise from electron transfer between molecular orbitals displaying asymmetric spatial charge distributions, akin to p-n junction diodes in semiconductors. Here we report a novel all-hydrocarbon molecular rectifier consisting of a diamantane-C60 conjugate. By linking both sp(3) (diamondoid) and sp(2) (fullerene) carbon allotropes, this hybrid molecule opposingly pairs negative and positive electron affinities. The single-molecule conductances of self-assembled domains on Au(111), probed by low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, reveal a large rectifying response of the molecular constructs. This specific electronic behaviour is postulated to originate from the electrostatic repulsion of diamantane-C60 molecules due to positively charged terminal hydrogen atoms on the diamondoid interacting with the top electrode (scanning tip) at various bias voltages. Density functional theory computations scrutinize the electronic and vibrational spectroscopic fingerprints of this unique molecular structure and corroborate the unconventional rectification mechanism.

Metal oxide-organic frameworks (MOOFs), a new series of coordination hybrids constructed from molybdenum(VI) oxide and bitopic 1,2,4-triazole linkers.

A series of molybdenum(VI) oxide-organic solids were prepared by hydrothermal reactions employing N-donor tectons, which combine two 1,2,4-triazol-4-yl sites separated by representative aliphatic spacers (ethylene, tr(2)eth; 1,3-propylene, tr(2)pr; trans-1,4-cyclohexanediyl, tr(2)cy; diamondoid 1,3-adamantanediyl, tr(2)ad; 1,6- and 4,9-diamantanediyls, 1,6-tr(2)dia and 4,9-tr(2)dia) and heterofunctional 5-[4-(1,2,4-triazol-4-yl)phenyl]tetrazole (trtz). In all the compounds the 1,2,4-triazol-4-yl group acts as a short-distance N(1),N(2)-bridge between two Mo ions (Mo-N 2.36-2.50 A). The 3D framework structure is based upon pseudo-4(1) helices ([Mo(4)O(12)(tr(2)eth)(2)] 1, [Mo(2)O(6)(tr(2)cy)] 3) or sinusoidal chains ([Mo(2)O(6)(tr(2)pr)] 2, [Mo(2)O(6)(tr(2)ad)].6H(2)O 4, [Mo(2)O(6)(4,9-tr(2)dia)].0.5H(2)O 5) of vertex-sharing MoO(4)N(2) octahedra, while the bitopic organic ligands manifest a dual role as connectors for two adjacent octahedra and as links between separate 1D inorganic subtopologies. For linear, lengthy tectons tr(2)cy and 4,9-tr(2)dia two identical frameworks interpenetrate. In [MoO(3)(trtz)] 7, the 4(1) helices aggregate into 3D tetragonal framework (five-fold interpenetrated) by hydrogen bonding between the tetrazole groups. The 2D structure of [Mo(4)O(12)(1,6-tr(2)dia)].2H(2)O 6 is influenced by the very bulky aliphatic portion of the ligands, which connect chains of edge-shared octahedra MoO(5)N (Mo-N 2.346(2), 2.456(2) A).

Beyond the corey reaction: one-step diolefination of cyclic ketones.

The reactivities of the cyclic ketones cycloheptanone, cyclodecanone, and cycloundecanone with dimethylsulfoxonium methylide generated from trimethylsulfoxonium iodide and base (NaH) were studied in diglyme at 130 degrees C. Oxiranes, which primarily form via the Corey reaction, lead to ring expansions to give oxetanes and oxacyclopentanes when an excess of dimethylsulfoxonium methylide is used. The Corey reaction is suppressed in the presence of excess of base, and 1,3-terminal dienes form instead (we term this reaction the Yurchenko diolefination). Our mechanistic proposal involves the deprotonation of the betaine that forms after the attack of dimethylsulfoxonium methylide on the carbonyl group of the ketone. The key step of the diolefination reaction involves a [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement of the ylide to a gamma-unsaturated sulfoxide with a barrier of 9.9 kcal/mol (DeltaH298, MP2/cc-pVDZ, for the cycloheptane derivative). The elimination of sulfenic acid from the gamma-unsaturated sulfoxide in the terminal step of the diolefination is associated with a higher barrier (17.3 kcal/mol) but is strongly accelerated in the presence of base. The reactivity of cyclic ketones in the Yurchenko reaction depends on the ring size; medium-sized cyclodecanone is less reactive than either cycloheptanone or cyclododecanone.