Transition state

About: Transition state is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4978 publications have been published within this topic receiving 117965 citations. The topic is also known as: transition state of elementary reaction.

Reactions of diborane with ammonia and ammonia borane: catalytic effects for multiple pathways for hydrogen release.

Abstract: High-level electronic structure calculations have been used to construct portions of the potential energy surfaces related to the reaction of diborane with ammonia and ammonia borane (B2H6 + NH3 and B2H6 + BH3NH3) to probe the molecular mechanism of H2 release. Geometries of stationary points were optimized at the MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ level. Total energies were computed at the coupled-cluster CCSD(T) theory level with the correlation-consistent basis sets. The results show a wide range of reaction pathways for H2 elimination. The initial interaction of B2H6 + NH3 leads to a weak preassociation complex, from which a B−H−B bridge bond is broken giving rise to a more stable H3BHBH2NH3 adduct. This intermediate, which is also formed from BH3NH3 + BH3, is connected with at least six transition states for H2 release with energies 18−93 kcal/mol above the separated reactants. The lowest-lying transition state is a six-member cycle, in which BH3 exerts a bifunctional catalytic effect accelerating H2 generation within ...

Racemase Activity of B. cepacia Lipase Leads to Dual‐Function Asymmetric Dynamic Kinetic Resolution of α‐Aminonitriles

Abstract: The Diels-Alder reaction is one of the most powerful synthetic tools in organic chemistry, and asymmetric Diels-Alder catalysis allows for rapid construction of chiral carbon scaffolds. For this reason, considerable effort has been invested in developing efficient and stereoselective organo- and biocatalysts. However, Diels-Alder is a virtually unknown reaction in Nature, and to engineer an enzyme into a Diels-Alderase is therefore a challenging task. Despite several successful designs of catalytic antibodies since the 1980’s, their catalytic activities have remained low, and no true artificial ’Diels-Alderase’ enzyme was reported before 2010.In this thesis, we employ state-of-the-art computational tools to study the mechanism of organocatalyzed Diels-Alder in detail, and to redesign existing enzymes into intermolecular Diels-Alder catalysts. Papers I–IV explore the mechanistic variations when employing increasingly activated reactants and the effect of catalysis. In particular, the relation between the traditionally presumed concerted mechanism and a stepwise pathway, forming one bond at a time, is probed. Papers V–X deal with enzyme design and the computational aspects of predicting catalytic activity. Four novel, computationally designed Diels-Alderase candidates are presented in Papers VI–IX. In Paper X, a new parameterization of the Linear Interaction Energy model for predicting protein-ligand affinities is presented.A general finding in this thesis is that it is difficult to attain large transition state stabilization effects solely by hydrogen bond catalysis. In addition, water (the preferred solvent of enzymes) is well-known for catalyzing Diels- Alder by itself. Therefore, an efficient Diels-Alderase must rely on large binding affinities for the two substrates and preferential binding conformations close to the transition state geometry. In Papers VI–VIII, we co-designed the enzyme active site and substrates in order to achieve the best possible complementarity and maximize binding affinity and pre-organization. Even so, catalysis is limited by the maximum possible stabilization offered by hydrogen bonds, and by the inherently large energy barrier associated with the [4+2] cycloaddition.The stepwise Diels-Alder pathway, proceeding via a zwitterionic intermediate, may offer a productive alternative for enzyme catalysis, since an enzyme active site may be more differentiated towards stabilizing the high-energy states than for the standard mechanism. In Papers I and III, it is demonstrated that a hydrogen bond donor catalyst provides more stabilization of transition states having pronounced charge-transfer character, which shifts the preference towards a stepwise mechanism.Another alternative, explored in Paper IX, is to use an α,β -unsaturated ketone as a ’pro-diene’, and let the enzyme generate the diene in situ by general acid/base catalysis. The results show that the potential reduction in the reaction barrier with such a mechanism is much larger than for conventional Diels-Alder. Moreover, an acid/base-mediated pathway is a better mimic of how natural enzymes function, since remarkably few catalyze their reactions solely by non-covalent interactions.

Selective Aromatic Hydroxylation with Dioxygen and Simple Copper Imine Complexes.

Abstract: The formation of a bis(μ-oxido)dicopper complex with the ligand 2-(diethylaminoethyl)-6-phenylpyridine (PPN) and its subsequent hydroxylation of the pendant phenyl group (studied earlier by Holland et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.­ 1999, 38, 1139–1142) has been reinvestigated to gain a better understanding of such systems in view of the development of new synthetic applications. To this end, we prepared a simple copper imine complex system that also affords selective o-hydroxylation of aromatic aldehydes by using dioxygen as the oxidant: Applying the ligand N′-benzylidene-N,N-diethylethylenediamine (BDED), salicylaldehyde was prepared in good yields and we show that this reaction also occurs through an intermediate bis-μ-oxido copper complex. The underlying reaction mechanism for the PPN-supported complex was studied at the BLYP-D/TZVP level of density functional theory and the results for representative stationary points along reaction paths of the BDED-supported complex reveal a closely related mechanistic scenario. The results demonstrate a new facile synthetic way to introduce OH groups into aromatic aldehydes.