Closing the loop: initially, the reactivity of benzyl alcohol determines the nucleation of Cu nanoparticles, but as soon as they start to form they begin to catalyze the condensation of benzyl alcohol to dibenzylether.

Chiral molecules interact and react differently with other chiral objects, depending on their handedness. Therefore, it is essential to understand and ultimately control the evolution of molecular chirality during chemical reactions. Although highly sophisticated techniques for the controlled synthesis of chiral molecules have been developed, the observation of chirality on the natural femtosecond time scale of a chemical reaction has so far remained out of reach for isolated molecules.Here, we demonstrate a general experimental technique, based on high-harmonic generation in tailored laser fields, and apply it to probe the time evolution of molecular chirality during the photodissociation of 2-iodobutane. These measurements show a change in sign and a pronounced increase in the magnitude of the chiral response over the first 100 fs, followed by its decay within less than 500 fs, revealing the photodissociation to achiral products. The observed time evolution is explained in terms of the variation of the electric and magnetic transition-dipole moments between the lowest electronic states of the cation as a function of the reaction coordinate. These results open the path to investigations of the chirality of molecular reaction pathways, light-induced chirality in chemical processes and the control of molecular chirality through tailored laser pulses. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTChiral molecules interact and react differently, depending on their handedness (left vs. right). This chiral recognition is the basic principle governing most biomolecular interactions, such as the activity of drugs or our perception of scents. Inspite of this fundamental importance, a real-time (femtosecond) observation of chirality during a chemical reaction has remained out of reach for isolated molecules. In the present work, we report this fundamental breakthrough with a seemingly unlikely technique: high-harmonic generation (HHG) in tailored intense near-infrared laser fields. Combining the powerful transient-grating technique with HHG in counter-rotating circularly-polarized laser fields, we follow the temporal evolution of molecular chirality during a chemical reaction from the unexcited electronic ground state through the transition-state region to the final achiral products.

Experimental determination of the absolute stereochemistry of chiral molecules has been a fundamental challenge in natural sciences for decades. Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) spectroscopy represents an attractive alternative to traditional methods like X-ray crystallography due to the use of molecules in solution. The interpretation of measured VCD spectra and thus the assignment of the absolute configuration relies on quantum-mechanical calculations. While such calculations are straightforward for rigid molecules with a single conformation, the need to estimate the correct conformational ensemble and energy landscape to obtain the appropriate theoretical spectra poses significant challenges for flexible molecules. In this work, we present the development of a VCD spectra alignment (VSA) algorithm to compare theoretical and experimental VCD spectra. The algorithm determines which enantiomer is more likely to reproduce the experimental spectrum and thus allows the correct assignment of the absolute stereochemistry. The VSA algorithm is successfully applied to determine the absolute chirality of highly flexible molecules, including commercial drug substances. Furthermore, we show that the computational cost can be reduced by performing the full frequency calculation only for a reduced set of conformers. The presented approach has the potential to allow the determination of the absolute configuration of chiral molecules in a robust and efficient manner.

Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs) and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs) are polyhalogenated hydrocarbons with similar stereochemistry. Both classes of compounds are considered biologically persistent and bioaccumulating pollutants. In 2009, the major HCH stereoisomers came under regulation of the Stockholm convention. Despite their persistence, HCHs are susceptible to bacterial biotransformations. Here we show that LinB, an HCH-converting haloalkane dehalogenase from Sphingobium indicum B90A, is also able to transform HBCDs. Racemic mixtures of α-, β-, and γ-HBCDs were exposed to LinB under various conditions. All stereoisomers were converted, but (-)α-, (+)β-, and (+)γ-HBCDs were transformed faster by LinB than their enantiomers. The enantiomeric excess increased to 8 ± 4%, 27 ± 1%, and 20 ± 2% in 32 h comparable to values of 7.1%, 27.0%, and 22.9% as obtained from respective kinetic models. Initially formed pentabromocyclododecanols (PBCDOHs) were further transformed to tetrabromocyclododecadiols (TBCDDOHs). At least, seven mono- and five dihydroxylated products were distinguished by LC-MS so far. The widespread occurrence of HCHs has led to the evolution of bacterial degradation pathways for such compounds. It remains to be shown if LinB-catalyzed HBCD transformations in vitro can also be observed in vivo, for example, in contaminated soils or in other words if such HBCD biotransformations are important environmental processes.

Abstract. Homonuclear decoupling sequences in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) under magic-angle spinning (MAS) show experimentally significantly larger residual line width than expected from Floquet theory to second order. We present an in-depth theoretical and experimental analysis of the origin of the residual line width under decoupling based on frequency-switched Lee–Goldburg (FSLG) sequences. We analyze the effect of experimental pulse-shape errors (e.g., pulse transients and B1-field inhomogeneities) and use a Floquet-theory-based description of higher-order error terms that arise from the interference between the MAS rotation and the pulse sequence. It is shown that the magnitude of the third-order auto term of a single homo- or heteronuclear coupled spin pair is important and leads to significant line broadening under FSLG decoupling. Furthermore, we show the dependence of these third-order error terms on the angle of the effective field with the B0 field. An analysis of second-order cross terms is presented that shows that the influence of three-spin terms is small since they are averaged by the pulse sequence. The importance of the inhomogeneity of the radio-frequency (rf) field is discussed and shown to be the main source of residual line broadening while pulse transients do not seem to play an important role. Experimentally, the influence of the combination of these error terms is shown by using restricted samples and pulse-transient compensation. The results show that all terms are additive but the major contribution to the residual line width comes from the rf-field inhomogeneity for the standard implementation of FSLG sequences, which is significant even for samples with a restricted volume.

Abstract. Inositol phosphates (IPs) are a major pool of identifiable organic phosphorus (P) in soil. However, insight into their distribution and cycling in soil remains limited, particularly of lower-order IP (IP5 and IP4). This is because the quantification of lower-order IP typically requires a series of chemical extractions, including hypobromite oxidation to isolate IP, followed by chromatographic separation. Here, for the first time, we identify the chemical nature of organic P in four soil extracts following hypobromite oxidation using solution 31P NMR spectroscopy and transverse relaxation (T2) experiments. Soil samples analysed include A horizons from a Ferralsol (Colombia), a Cambisol and a Gleysol from Switzerland, and a Cambisol from Germany. Solution 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of the phosphomonoester region in soil extracts following hypobromite oxidation revealed an increase in the number of sharp signals (up to 70) and an on average 2-fold decrease in the concentration of the broad signal compared to the untreated soil extracts. We identified the presence of four stereoisomers of IP6, four stereoisomers of IP5, and scyllo-IP4. We also identified for the first time two isomers of myo-IP5 in soil extracts: myo-(1,2,4,5,6)-IP5 and myo-(1,3,4,5,6)-IP5. Concentrations of total IP ranged from 1.4 to 159.3 mg P per kg soil across all soils, of which between 9 % and 50 % were comprised of lower-order IP. Furthermore, we found that the T2 times, which are considered to be inversely related to the tumbling of a molecule in solution and hence its molecular size, were significantly shorter for the underlying broad signal compared to for the sharp signals (IP6) in soil extracts following hypobromite oxidation. In summary, we demonstrate the presence of a plethora of organic P compounds in soil extracts, largely attributed to IPs of various orders, and provide new insight into the chemical stability of complex forms of organic P associated with soil organic matter.

We report high resolution spectroscopic results of 1,2-dithiine-(1,2-dithia-3,5-cyclohexadiene, C4H4S2) in the gigahertz and terahertz spectroscopic ranges and exploratory theoretical calculations of parity violation and tunneling processes in view of a possible experimental determination of the parity violating energy difference ΔpvE in this chiral molecule. Theory predicts that the parity violating energy difference between the enantiomers in their ground state (ΔpvE ≃ 1.1 × 10(-11)(hc) cm(-1)) is in principle measurable as it is much larger than the calculated tunneling splitting for the symmetrical potential ΔE± < 10(-24) (hc) cm(-1). With a planar transition state for stereomutation at about 2500 cm(-1) tunneling splitting becomes appreciable above 2300 cm(-1). This makes levels of well-defined parity accessible to parity selection by the available powerful infrared lasers and thus useful for one of the existing experimental approaches towards molecular parity violation. The new GHz spectroscopy leads to greatly improved ground state rotational parameters for 1,2-dithiine. These are used as starting points for the first successful analyses of high resolution interferometric Fourier transform infrared (FTIR, THz) spectra of the fundamentals ν17 (1308.873 cm(-1) or 39.23903 THz), ν22 (623.094 cm(-1) or 18.67989 THz) and ν3 (1544.900 cm(-1) or 46.314937 THz) for which highly accurate spectroscopic parameters are reported. The results are discussed in relation to current efforts to measure ΔpvE.

The generation of ultrashort circularly polarized pulses in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral range has recently attracted considerable interest for applications in time-resolved circular-dichroism experiments. Here, we demonstrate a simple approach to generate near-circularly polarized femtosecond pulses in the vacuum-ultraviolet. The ellipticity of the generated light can be continuously tuned from linear to near-circular, as demonstrated by detailed polarimetry measurements. Combining optical polarimetry with photoelectron circular-dichroism (PECD) measurements, we demonstrate a novel approach to characterizing the polarization state of light in terms of all four Stokes parameters. For photon energies of 9.3 eV, we obtained S3 = 0.96 ± 0.02 and a degree of polarization of 97±2%, i.e. the highest values reported from any harmonic-generation source so far. This source is directly applicable to circular-dichroism experiments, also enabling time-resolved PECD in the extreme-ultraviolet, a general approach to probing time-dependent chirality during chemical processes on (sub)-femtosecond time scales.