Covalent organic frameworks (COFs), formed by reversible condensation of rigid organic building blocks, are crystalline and porous materials of great potential for catalysis and organic electronics. Particularly with a view of organic electronics, achieving a maximum degree of crystallinity and large domain sizes while allowing for a tightly π-stacked topology would be highly desirable. We present a design concept that uses the 3D geometry of the building blocks to generate a lattice of uniquely defined docking sites for the attachment of consecutive layers, thus allowing us to achieve a greatly improved degree of order within a given average number of attachment and detachment cycles during COF growth. Synchronization of the molecular geometry across several hundred nanometers promotes the growth of highly crystalline frameworks with unprecedented domain sizes. Spectroscopic data indicate considerable delocalization of excitations along the π-stacked columns and the feasibility of donor-acceptor excitations across the imine bonds. The frameworks developed in this study can serve as a blueprint for the design of a broad range of tailor-made 2D COFs with extended π-conjugated building blocks for applications in photocatalysis and optoelectronics.

N-Alkylaminoferrocene (NAAF)-based prodrugs are activated in the presence of elevated amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which corresponds to cancer specific conditions, with formation of NAAF and p-quinone methide. Both products act synergistically by increasing oxidative stress in cancer cells that causes their death. Though it has already been demonstrated that the best prodrugs of this type retain their antitumor activity in vivo, the effects were found to be substantially weaker than those observed in cell cultures. Moreover, the mechanistic studies of these compounds in vivo are missing. For clarification of these important questions, labeling of the prodrugs with radioactive moieties would be necessary. In this paper, we first observed that the representative NAAF-based prodrugs are hydrolyzed in dilute aqueous solutions to the corresponding arylboronic acids. We confirmed that these products are responsible for ROS amplification and anticancer properties of the parent prodrugs. Next, we developed the efficient synthetic protocol for radiolabeling the hydrolyzed NAAF-based prodrugs by [ 18 F]fluoroglucosylation under the conditions of the copper(I)-catalyzed azide−alkyne 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition and used this protocol to prepare one representative hydrolyzed NAAF-based prodrug radiolabeled with 18 F. Finally, we studied the stability of the 18 F-labeled compound in human serum in vitro and in rat blood in vivo and obtained preliminary data on its biodistribution in vivo in mice carrying pancreatic (AR42J) and prostate (PC3) tumors by applying PET imaging studies. The compound described in this paper will help to understand in vivo effects (e.g., pharmacokinetics, accumulation in organs, the nature of side effects) of these prodrugs that will strongly contribute to their advancement to clinical trials.

Converting CO2 into value-added chemicals and fuels, such as methanol, is a promising approach to limit the environmental impact of human activities. Conventional methanol synthesis catalysts have shown limited efficiency...

In this work, the interaction of C 20 with N 2 X 2 ( X = H , F , Cl , Br , Me ) molecules has been explored using the B3LYP, M062x methods and 6-311G(d,p) and 6-311+G(d,p) basis sets. The interaction energies (IEs) obtained with standard method were corrected by basis set superposition error (BSSE) during the geometry optimization for all molecules at the same levels of theory. It was found C 20… N 2 H 2 interaction is stronger than the interaction of other N 2 X 2 ( X = F , Cl , Br , Me ) with C 20. Highest occupied and lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (HOMO and LUMO, respectively) levels are illustrated by density of states spectra (DOS). The nucleus-independent chemical shifts (NICSs) confirm that C 20… N 2 X 2 molecules exhibit aromatic characteristics. Geometries obtained from DFT calculations were used to perform NBO analysis. Also, 14 N NQR parameters of the C 20… N 2 X 2 molecules are predicted.

In this work, the structural, electronic properties, 14 N NQR parameters and first hyperpolarizability of W(CO) 5 L, L=(4-pyridylmethylene)malononitrile complex were computed in gas phase by hybrid functional PBE method with LanL2DZ, and 6-311G(d,p) basis sets for transition metal and man group elements, respectively. Also, the solvent effect on structural parameters, frontier orbital energies of complexes has been carried out based on Polarizable Continuum Model (PCM). The results indicate that the polarity of solvents has played a significant role on the structures and properties of complex.1 H and 13 C NMR chemical shifts were calculated by using the Gauge-invariant atomic orbital (GIAO) method. By analyzing the structural characteristics of this structure, W-C and W-N bonds were identified and characterized in details by topological parameters such as electron density ρ(r) and Laplacian of electron density 2® ∇ 2 ρ(r) from Bader's atom in molecules theory.

This study evaluates the finite size effect on the oxygen adsorption energy of coinage metal (Cu, Ag and Au) cuboctahedral nanoparticles in the size range of 13 to 1415 atoms (0.7–3.5 nm in diameter). Trends in particle size effects are well described with single point calculations, in which the metal atoms are frozen in their bulk position and the oxygen atom is added in a location determined from periodic surface calculations. This is shown explicitly for Cu nanoparticles, for which full geometry optimization only leads to a constant offset between relaxed and unrelaxed adsorption energies that is independent of particle size. With increasing cluster size, the adsorption energy converges systematically to the limit of the (211) extended surface. The 55-atomic cluster is an outlier for all of the coinage metals and all three materials show similar behavior with respect to particle size. Graphic Abstract

Oxide supports play an important role in enhancing the catalytic properties of transition metal nanoparticles in heterogeneous catalysis. How extensively interactions between the oxide support and the nanoparticles impact the electronic structure as well as the surface properties of the nanoparticles is hence of high interest. In this study, the influence of a magnesium oxide support on the properties of copper nanoparticles with different size, shape, and adsorption sites is investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. By proposing simple models to reduce the cost of the calculations while maintaining the accuracy of the results, we show using the nonreducible oxide support MgO as an example that there is no significant influence of the MgO support on the electronic structure of the copper nanoparticles, with the exception of adsorption directly at the Cu−MgO interface. We also propose a simplified methodology that allows us to reduce the cost of the calculations, while the accuracy of the results is maintained. We demonstrate in addition that the Cu nanowire model corresponds well to the nanoparticle model, which reduces the computational cost even further.

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