Archive for the ‘crystal_structure_mining’ Category
Thursday, March 23rd, 2017
It is not only the non-classical norbornyl cation that has proved controversial in the past. A colleague mentioned at lunch (thanks Paul!) that tri-coordinate group 14 cations such as R3Si+ have also had an interesting history.[cite]10.1021/ja990389u[/cite] Here I take a brief look at some of these systems.
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Tags:2-Norbornyl cation, Carbocations, chemical bonding, Chemistry, metal, Physical organic chemistry, Reactive intermediates, search query, tri-coordinate
Posted in crystal_structure_mining | 8 Comments »
Sunday, March 19th, 2017
A pyrophoric metal is one that burns spontaneously in oxygen; I came across this phenomenon as a teenager doing experiments at home. Pyrophoric iron for example is prepared by heating anhydrous iron (II) oxalate in a sealed test tube (i.e. to 600° or higher). When the tube is broken open and the contents released, a shower of sparks forms. Not all metals do this; early group metals such as calcium undergo a different reaction releasing carbon monoxide and forming calcium carbonate and not the metal itself. Here as a prelude to the pyrophoric reaction proper, I take a look at this alternative mechanism using calculations.
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Tags:Aluminium, calculated free energy barrier, Carbon monoxide, Chemical elements, Chemistry, higher activation energy, Iron, Matter, metal, metal oxalates, Oxide, pyrophoric metal, Pyrophoricity, Reducing agents
Posted in crystal_structure_mining, reaction mechanism | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 10th, 2017
A few years back, I did a post about the Pirkle reagent[cite]10.1039/c39910000765[/cite] and the unusual π-facial hydrogen bonding structure[cite]10.1039/P29940000703[/cite] it exhibits. For the Pirkle reagent, this bonding manifests as a close contact between the acidic OH hydrogen and the edge of a phenyl ring; the hydrogen bond is off-centre from the middle of the aryl ring. Here I update the topic, with a new search of the CSD (Cambridge structure database), but this time looking at the positional preference of that bond and whether it is on or off-centre.
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Tags:Ammonia, Ammonium, aromaticity, Cations, Centroid, chemical bonding, Chemistry, Hydrogen bond, Phenyl group
Posted in crystal_structure_mining | No Comments »
Sunday, March 5th, 2017
Cyclobutadiene is one of those small iconic molecules, the transience and instability of which was explained theoretically long before it was actually detected in 1965.[cite]10.1021/ja01092a049[/cite] Given that instability, I was intrigued as to how many crystal structures might have been reported for this ring system, along with the rather more stable congener cyclo-octatetraene. Here is what I found.
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Tags:antiaromaticity, Chemistry, cyclobutadiene, Instability, Nature, Physical organic chemistry, Physics, search query
Posted in crystal_structure_mining | 4 Comments »
Saturday, February 11th, 2017
On February 6th I was alerted to this intriguing article[cite]10.1038/nchem.2716[/cite] by a phone call, made 55 minutes before the article embargo was due to be released. Gizmodo wanted to know if I could provide an (almost)† instant‡ quote. After a few days, this report of a stable compound of helium and sodium still seems impressive to me and I now impart a few more thoughts here.
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Tags:10.1038, Atom, Chemical elements, chemical phenomenon, Chemistry, Company: P. Acucar-CBD, Electride, Electron, Food Retail & Distribution - NEC, helium, Hydrogen, Matter, Oxygen, Physics, social media
Posted in Bond slam, crystal_structure_mining, Interesting chemistry | 11 Comments »
Saturday, December 24th, 2016
The previous posts produced discussion about the dipole moments of highly polar molecules. Here to produce some reference points for further discussion I look at the dipole moment of glycine, the classic zwitterion (an internal ion-pair).
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Tags:aqueous solution, Chemical polarity, Chemistry, dielectric, Dipole, Electric dipole moment, Electromagnetism, Magnetism, Moment, Nature, Physical quantities, Physics, Potential theory, zwitterion
Posted in crystal_structure_mining, Interesting chemistry | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 19th, 2016
I am completing my survey of the vote for molecule of the year candidates, which this year seems focused on chemical records of one type or another.
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Tags:chemical publishing, chemical records, human chemical perception, Matter, metal, Molecule, Nature, search query, search software, Voting
Posted in crystal_structure_mining, Interesting chemistry | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 16th, 2016
Here is a third candidate for the C&EN “molecule of the year” vote. This one was shortlisted because it is the first example of a metal-nitrogen complex exhibiting single, double and triple bonds from different nitrogens to the same metal[cite]10.1039/c5sc04608d[/cite] (XUZLUB has a 3D display available at DOI: 10.5517/CC1JYY6M). Since no calculation of its molecular properties was reported, I annotate some here.
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Tags:10.14469, chemical shifts, expert chemical knowledge, metal, metal-nitrogen complex exhibiting single, search query
Posted in crystal_structure_mining, Interesting chemistry | 10 Comments »
Monday, December 12th, 2016
Chemical and engineering news (C&EN) is asking people to vote for their molecule of the year from six highlighted candidates. This reminded me of the history of internet-based “molecules of the moment“. It is thought that the concept originated in December 1995 here at Imperial and in January 1996 at Bristol University by Paul May and we were joined by Karl Harrison at Oxford shortly thereafter. Quite a few more such sites followed this concept, differentiated by their time intervals of weeks, months or years. The genre is well suited for internet display because of plugins or “helpers” such as Rasmol, Chime, Jmol and now JSmol which allow the three dimensions of molecular structures to be explored by the reader. Here I discuss a second candidate from the C&EN list; a ferrocene-based Ferris wheel[cite]10.1038/nchem.2553[/cite],[cite]10.5517/CCDC.CSD.CC1JPKYQ[/cite] (DOI for 3D model: 10.5517/CCDC.CSD.CC1JPKYQ) originating from research carried out at Imperial by Tim Albrecht, Nick Long and colleagues.
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Tags:American Chemical Society, Bristol University, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry, Engineering, internet display, Karl Harrison, metal centres, Nick Long, Paul May, Tim Albrecht
Posted in crystal_structure_mining, Interesting chemistry | 2 Comments »