Mechanistic Details and Reactivity Descriptors in Oxidation and Acid Catalysis of Methanol

ACS Catalysis ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 666-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prashant Deshlahra ◽  
Robert T. Carr ◽  
Song-Hai Chai ◽  
Enrique Iglesia
2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (54) ◽  
pp. 7371-7398
Author(s):  
Prashant Deshlahra ◽  
Enrique Iglesia

Acid strength and proton affinity, the independent properties of catalysts and molecules, are incomplete descriptors of because cations and conjugate anions reorganize their charges as they interact as bound intermediates and transition states.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang-Sheng Wang ◽  
Sabrina Monaco ◽  
Anh Ngoc Thai ◽  
Md. Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Chen Wang ◽  
...  

A catalytic system comprised of a cobalt-diphosphine complex and a Lewis acid (LA) such as AlMe3 has been found to promote hydrocarbofunctionalization reactions of alkynes with Lewis basic and electron-deficient substrates such as formamides, pyridones, pyridines, and azole derivatives through site-selective C-H activation. Compared with known Ni/LA catalytic system for analogous transformations, the present catalytic system not only feature convenient set up using inexpensive and bench-stable precatalyst and ligand such as Co(acac)3 and 1,3-bis(diphenylphosphino)propane (dppp), but also display distinct site-selectivity toward C-H activation of pyridone and pyridine derivatives. In particular, a completely C4-selective alkenylation of pyridine has been achieved for the first time. Mechanistic stidies including DFT calculations on the Co/Al-catalyzed addition of formamide to alkyne have suggested that the reaction involves cleavage of the carbamoyl C-H bond as the rate-limiting step, which proceeds through a ligand-to-ligand hydrogen transfer (LLHT) mechanism leading to an alkyl(carbamoyl)cobalt intermediate.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Oller ◽  
David A. Sáez ◽  
Esteban Vöhringer-Martinez

<div><div><div><p>Local reactivity descriptors such as atom condensed Fukui functions are promising computational tools to study chemical reactivity at specific sites within a molecule. Their applications have been mainly focused on isolated molecules in their most stable conformation without considering the effects of the surroundings. Here, we propose to combine QM/MM Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations to obtain the microstates (configurations) of a molecular system using different representations of the molecular environment and calculate Boltzmann weighted atom condensed local reac- tivity descriptors based on conceptual DFT. Our approach takes the conformational fluctuations of the molecular system and the polarization of its electron density by the environment into account allowing us to analyze the effect of changes in the molecular environment on reactivity. In this contribution, we apply the method mentioned above to the catalytic fixation of carbon dioxide by crotonyl-CoA carboxylase/reductase and study if the enzyme alters the reactivity of its substrate compared to an aqueous solution. Our main result is that the protein en- vironment activates the substrate by the elimination of solute-solvent hydrogen bonds from aqueous solution in the two elementary steps of the reaction mechanism: the nucleophilic attack of a hydride anion from NADPH on the α, β unsaturated thioester and the electrophilic attack of carbon dioxide on the formed enolate species.</p></div></div></div>


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sangeeta Srivastava ◽  
Nadeem Ahmad Ansari ◽  
Sadaf Aleem

: Gallic acid is abundantly found in amla (Phyllanthus emblica), a deciduous of the family phyllanthaceae. Gallic acid, the major constituent of the plant was methylated to 3,4,5 trimethoxy gallic acid, which then underwent steglich esterification first with paracetamol and then with 4-hydroxy acetophenone to yield 4-acetamidophenyl 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoate and 4-acetyl phenyl 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoate “respectively”. 1H NMR, 13C NMR, UV, FT-IR and mass spectroscopy were used to characterize the synthesized compounds. Density functional theory (B3YLP) using 6-31G (d,p) basis set have been used for quantum chemical calculations. AIM (Atom in molecule) approach depicted weak molecular interactions within the molecules whereas the reactive site and reactivity within the molecule were examined by global and local reactivity descriptors. The HOMO and LUMO energies and frontier orbital energy gap were calculated by time dependant DFT approach using IEFPCM model. Small value for HOMO–LUMO energy gap indicated that easier charge transfer occurs within compound 4. The nucleophilic and electrophilic reactivity were determined by MEP (molecular electrostatic potential) experiment. Polarizability, dipole moment, and first hyperpolarizability values were calculated to depict the NLO (nonlinear optical) property of both the synthesized compounds. The antimicrobial activity was also carried out and broad spectrum antibacterial activity against several strains of bacteria and certain unicellular fungi were exhibited by synthesized compound 3.


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