Pyrimidinyl nitronyl nitroxides.

The chemistry of 2,2,4,4-substituted pentane derivatives has been investigated with the aim of providing a flexible and versatile synthetic route to pyrimidinyl nitronyl nitroxides, in which the bis-N-oxy fragment is incorporated in a six-membered ring. The synthesis of 2,4-diamino-2,4-dimethylpentane and 2,4-bis(hydroxylamino)-2,4-dimethylpentane, convenient precursors of these nitroxides, is described and full characterization of a series of pyrimidinyl nitronyl nitroxides is reported, along with a preliminary study of their coordination properties.

A unified orbital model of delocalised and localised currents in monocycles, from annulenes to azabora-heterocycles.

Why are some (4n+2)pi systems aromatic, and some not? The ipsocentric approach to the calculation of the current density induced in a molecule by an external magnetic field predicts a four-electron diatropic (aromatic) ring current for (4n+2)pi carbocycles and a two-electron paratropic (antiaromatic) current for (4n)pi carbocycles. With the inclusion of an electronegativity parameter, an ipsocentric frontier-orbital model also predicts the transition from delocalised currents in carbocycles to nitrogen-localised currents in alternating azabora-heterocycles, which rationalises the differences in (magnetic) aromaticity between these isoelectronic pi-conjugated systems. Ab initio valence-bond calculations confirm the localisation predicted by the naive model, and coupled-Hartree-Fock calculations give current-density maps that exhibit the predicted delocalised-to-localised/carbocycle-heterocycle transition.

Is there a "most chiral tetrahedron"?

A degree of chirality is a function that purports to measure the amount of chirality of an object: it is equal for enantiomers, vanishes only for achiral or degenerate objects and is similarity invariant, dimensionless and normalisable to the interval [0,1]. For a tetrahedron of non-zero three-dimensional volume, achirality is synonymous with the presence of a mirror plane containing one edge and bisecting its opposite, and hence it is easy to design degree-of-chirality functions based on edge length that incorporate all constraints. It is shown that such functions can have largest maxima at widely different points in the tetrahedral shape space, and by incorporation of appropriate factors, the maxima can be pushed to any point in the space.

The geometric structure of deformed nanotubes and the topological coordinates.

After summarizing the harmonic approach to topological coordinates and the null space embedding of graphs, three-coordinated tiling of the plane by hexagons, pentagons, and heptagons are presented and used for the construction of tubular, toroidal, and helical carbon structures. Physically realistic 3D geometries are formed from the corresponding adjacency matrices, and the final structure was obtained with the help of Brenner-potential based molecular mechanics methods.

Topological rotational strengths as chirality descriptors for fullerenes.

A graph-theoretical procedure is proposed for assigning a chirality descriptor (the topological sign tau(+) or tau(-)) to each enantiomer of a chiral polyhedron, polyhedral molecule or graph, independently of any vertex labelling scheme. Model Cartesian coordinates and rotational strengths are obtained using only adjacency information; a generalised HOMO-LUMO rotational strength is used to associate a sign with a Schlegel diagram and the corresponding three-dimensional structure, polyhedron or molecule. The topological sign gives an unambiguous way of communicating the identity of an enantiomer.

A highly water-soluble 2:1 beta-cyclodextrin-fullerene conjugate.

A novel 2:1 (permethylated-beta-cyclodextrin)-fullerene conjugate has been synthesised; highly soluble in cold water with formation of aggregates, it displays a negative solubility coefficient and has a partition coefficient between octanol and water (Log P = 1.58) in the suitable range for biological studies.

Water-soluble aminoxyls (nitroxides): 2-methyl-2-[(N-(4-tert-butylphenyl)oxyl]propanesulfonate and (1-oxyl-2,5,5-trimethylpyrrolidin-2-yl)methanesulfonate.

Two charged aminoxyls, ammonium (1-oxyl-2,5,5-trimethylpyrrolidin-2-yl)methanesulfonate and ammonium 2-methyl-2-[(N-(4-tert-butylphenyl)oxyl]propanesulfonate, obtained by methods easily adaptable to the preparation of various other aminoxyls are totally soluble in water but are partially associated in other solvents.