Miniature physical sphere-in-contact models of heterogeneous catalysts and metal nanoparticles.

Context: Physical molecular models have played a fundamental role in the understanding of chemical reactions on heterogeneous catalysts and on metal nanoparticles. To date, these physical models have been based on separate models of the metal nanoparticle (NP) or surface and of the substrate and the molecular structure of reactant and product adsorbates and their intermediates. In this paper, we try to provide a new miniature physical molecular model, the sphere-in-contact model of heterogeneous catalysts and metal nanoparticles that can build inexpensive, small and efficient molecular models that can be transported or shipped easily and that depict the chemical reaction as a whole, showing reactants, intermediates, products, the metal nanoparticle bound to the substrate which can give information about a reaction mechanism.

The sphere-in-contact model of carbon materials.

A sphere-in-contact model is presented that is used to build physical models of carbon materials such as graphite, graphene, carbon nanotubes and fullerene. Unlike other molecular models, these models have correct scale and proportions because the carbon atoms are represented by their atomic radius, in contrast to the more commonly used space-fill models, where carbon atoms are represented by their van der Waals radii. Based on a survey taken among 65 undergraduate chemistry students and 28 PhD/postdoctoral students with a background in molecular modeling, we found misconceptions arising from incorrect visualization of the size and location of the electron density located in carbon materials.

The effect of glassy carbon surface oxides in non-aqueous voltammetry: the case of quinones in acetonitrile.

Glassy carbon (GC) electrodes are well-known to contain oxygenated functional groups such as phenols, carbonyls, and carboxylic acids on their surface. The effects of these groups on voltammetry in aqueous solution are well-studied, but there has been little discussion of their possible effects in nonaqueous solution. In this study, we show that the acidic functional groups, particularly phenols, are likely causes of anomalous features often seen in the voltammetry of quinones in nonaqueous solution.

Quantitative structure-property relationships for longitudinal, transverse, and molecular static polarizabilities in polyynes.

The present work reports for the first time quantitative structure-property relationships, derived at the benchmark CCSD(T)/cc-PVTZ level of theory that estimate the static longitudinal, transverse, and molecular polarizability in polyynes (C2nH2), as a function of their length (L). In the case of independent electron models, regardless of the form of the nuclei potential that the electrons experience, the polarizability increases strongly with system size, scaling as L(4). In contrast, the static longitudinal polarizability in polyynes have a considerably weaker length-dependence (L(1.

Correlation of polarizabilities with Van der Waals interactions in pi-systems.

This work aims to (i) provide a semiquantitative relationship that can be used to estimate the binding energy, equilibrium separation, and potential energy surface (PES) for supermolecules consisting of benzene and small polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in parallel configuration and (ii) give a qualitative description of pi-pi interactions between PAHs. We compute the one-dimensional PES of benzene translated parallel to various PAHs within the framework of second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) perturbation theory. For PAHs of small MW difference, we observe a linear correlation between the binding energy and the number of carbon atoms in the supermolecule.