We have demonstrated that reactions of diphenylmethyllithium with a variety of substituted benzophenones produces corresponding tertiary alcohols that are easily dehydrated, without any need for purification, to produce various unsymmetrical and symmetrical tetraarylethylenes in excellent yields. The simplicity of the method allows for the preparation of a variety of ethylenic derivatives in multigram (10−50 g) quantities with great ease. The methodology was successfully employed for the preparation of various triphenylethylene (TPE)based triads (i.e., TPE−spacer−TPE) containing polyphenylene and fluoranyl-based spacers. The ready availability of various substituted tetraarylethylenes allowed us to shed light on the effect of substituents on the oxidation potentials (Eox) of various tetraarylethylenes. Moreover, the electronic coupling among the triphenylethylene moieties in various TPE−spacer−TPE triads was briefly probed by electrochemical and optical methods.
Ring opening transesterification polymerization of lactones derived from menthone and carvomenthone was used to synthesize polyols for polyurethane film formulations. The polyols were synthesized at 140 C using tin(II) octoate as catalyst, diethanolamine as trifunctional initiator, and with ratios of lactone : initiator of 9 : 1 or 18 : 1. Polyol structural features were deduced by comparison of NMR spectral data with those of simple model amide/esters of the initiator. Films were formulated from the renewable polyols, diphenylmethane diisocyanate [or poly(diphenylmethane diisocyanate)], and diethylene glycol. Thermal and mechanical properties of these polyurethane films were measured, demonstrating their potential utility as biobased thermosets for rigid or flexible foams.
We report an NMR chemical shift study of conformationally challenging seven-membered lactones (1–11); computed and experimental data sets are compared. The computations involved full conformational analysis of each lactone, Boltzmann-weighted averaging of the chemical shifts across all conformers, and linear correction of the computed chemical shifts. DFT geometry optimizations [M06-2X/6-31+G(d,p)] and GIAO NMR chemical shift calculations [B3LYP/6-311+G(2d,p)] provide the computed chemical shifts. The corrected-mean absolute error (CMAE), the average of the differences between the computed and experimental chemical shifts for each of the eleven lactones, is encouragingly small (0.02–0.08 ppm for 1H or 0.8–2.2 ppm for 13C). Three pairs of cis vs. trans diastereomeric lactones were used to assess the ability of the method to distinguish between stereoisomers. The experimental shifts were compared with the computed shifts for each of the two possible isomers. We introduce the use of a “match ratio”—the ratio of the larger (worse fit) to the smaller (better fit) CMAE. A greater match ratio value indicates better distinguishing ability. The match ratios are larger for proton data [2.4–4.0 (ave = 3.2)] than for carbon [1.1–2.3 (ave = 1.6)], indicating that the former provide a better basis for discriminating these diastereomers.
A simple synthesis of a polyaromatic receptor (i.e., duplexiphane) containing two adjoined Delta-shaped cavities is accomplished via an intramolecular (double) McMurry coupling, and its structure is established by X-ray crystallography. The binding of silver cation to duplexiphane showed that it binds only a single silver cation with significantly higher efficiency (>100 times) than a model compound containing only one pi-prismand-like cavity, and the single silver cation hops intramolecularly between the two adjoined cavities in duplexiphane.
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