C-H Activation #chempaperaday 125-133

Selected examples:

JACS 2004, 2300
JACS 2010, 14530
JACS 2004, 9542
Tetrahedron 2006, 11483
ACIE 2005, 2112
JACS 2009, 11234
JACS 2010, 14092
JACS 2012, 12002
JACS 2013, 1978

Buchwald-Hartwig Coupling #chempaperaday 109-124

Chem.Lett. 1983, 927
JACS 1994, 7901
ACIE 1995, 1348
TL 1995, 3609
JACS 2006, 3584
ACIE 1998, 2046
JOC 1999, 5575
JOC 2000, 1158
ACIE 2008, 6338
JACS 2008, 6586
JACS 2009, 11049
JACS 2006, 2180
JACS 2007, 10354
TL 1997, 6367
JACS 2006, 2180
ACIE 2011, 9943

Heck, Tsuji-Trost, Sonogashira Reactions #chempaperaday 101-109

Time to update the blog. Here are some examples from selected papers:

JACS 1992, 10091
TL 1994, 3453
JOC 1994, 2685
JOC 1994, 5583
TL 1993, 2505
JACS 1991, 1417
TL 1992, 2589
JACS 1999, 3543
JACS 1999, 7410

"A millennial overview of transition metal chemistry" #chempaperaday 100

I wanted to dedicate the 100th reading to F. Albert Cotton who I believe deserved a Nobel Prize in chemistry. You can read a short biography of him here:

http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/54/95.full.pdf

and here his biography as a book:

http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Golden-Age-Chemistry/dp/0128012161/ref=la_B001IR1HU6_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415238927&sr=1-4

The paper is a very short summary of transition metal chemistry starting with Werner complexes. I want to point a couple of his notes from the paper:

 "I note that the year 2000 is not the first year of the third millennium, no matter what the arithmetically-challenged of this world may like to think."

"At the beginning of the first millennium (i.e., six days after the birthday arbitrarily assumed for Jesus"

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2000/DT/B001668N#!divAbstract

"Fitting the Pieces of the Puzzle: The δ Bond" #chempaperaday 99

Multiple bonds between metal atoms! My favorite! I am in love with them since I've seen the first structure and molecular orbital diagram of [Re2Cl8]2-. I think there is nothing more amazing than having multiple bonds between two metals.

This is a "Viewpoint" and it's written for the "50th anniversary of the first paper describing a species with a quadruple bond by a team led by F. A. Cotton..."

It's not only a good summary of great work by him and his students, but also a great text full of hints how and with which instrumentation you should approach problems in your research.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021%2Fic500119h


 

"Homoleptic Organocobalt(III) Compounds with Intermediate Spin" #chempaperaday 98

This could be my favorite paper that I've read this week. I wrote it before. I like trends. I like systematic studies that allow you to compare results. This complex complete the "homoleptic perhaloaryl compounds of first-row transition metals" with the general formula of [M(C6X5)x]q-. So, now you can look at the first row transition metals with this formula and compare why they behave similar/different. I really like the discussion and characterization of the complex.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021%2Fic501719y

"Can One σ*-Antibonding Orbital Interact with Six Electrons of Lewis Bases? Analysis of a Multiply Interacting σ* Orbital" #chempaperaday 97

This paper is really interesting. Synthesis of the tin complex is very straightforward. But, the structure and the interpretation is exciting. To be honest, when I first saw the paper, I said "there is nothing special about it. I am sure thousands of complexes have similar structures and same interactions can be seen." But, after reading the discussion, (obviously) I changed my opinion. Also, I like the honesty of the authors

"We wish to report here the first example which is beyond our aforementioned common knowledge of dative bonds."

 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021%2Fom500951e

"Formation of an Oxidant-Sensible Pd(II) Coordination Compound and Its 1H NMR Specific Characterization" #chempaperaday 96

Journal of Chemical Education is one of my favorite journals. There are so many papers that really help you to learn more about chemistry even if you are not an undergraduate student (anymore). But, you are always a student.

This paper is obviously one of them and in fact it's not a "simple" undergraduate experiment.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021%2Fed500447f

Suzuki Coupling #chempaperaday 85-95

These are the papers that we're required to read for the organometallic chemistry (not exactly, but anyway) course I am taking. The topic is Suzuki coupling and some examples of it. Since I've read them all, it's time to share and record.

Chem.Rev. 1995, 2457
ACIE 2001, 4544
JOC 1999, 23
JOC 1994, 639
JACS 2000, 4020
JACS 2002, 9346
JACS 2005, 4685
ACIE 2004, 1871
JACS 2001, 10099
JACS 2002, 13662
ACIE 2003, 5749

Elitism

"Throughout my life, I have had a strong conscious and unconscious addiction to knowledge. Suppressing knowledge seems to me wrong and impractical. Obviously, knowledge can be used and misused. But, prevention of misuse, I firmly believe, must be kept separate from limitations on knowledge. Those believe that we are not yet ready for some knowledge consider themselves members of a world aristocracy that is ahead of everyone else in its value judgements. Some of the horrible events of the twentieth century may appear to justify their opinion. Nonetheless, I cannot help opposing aristocracy and elitism, whether they be an elite of nobility, race, money, morals, or even knowledge itself."

The quote above is from Edward Teller's Memoirs. 

Like him, I oppose any kind of "elitism." Today, I was thinking of people who consider themselves as smarter than other people based upon their education. Some people think a degree (especially an advanced degree) is a sign of intellectual capability. In fact, an advanced degree is just a degree that is earned mostly by hard work and sometimes even patience. A few exceptional people aside, most people just become highly professionalized in a certain field with an advanced degree. It does not show that are any smarter than a person without a degree. 

Male breast cancer

Here is a very short and informative review about male breast cancer. There is for sure a lot to learn from this rare disease and it will definitely help to understand female  breast cancer.

www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n10/full/nrc3806.html

Stille coupling #chempaperaday 72-84

In this post, I will give you the papers I have read about Stille coupling and some total synthesis papers where Stille coupling used. Some of them are among the mist important papers on the topic.

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"Is Science Dangerous?"

I read this paper by Lewis Wolpert today. I think it was a talk that he gave and this is the transcript. Anyway, you can agree with him or not, it is up to you. But,  I think there are really important points in his speech. I try to stay away from "controversial: issues. So, I won't comment on what parts I agree with him and what parts I don't. It is worth reading.

You can read it free here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569503/#!po=87.5000

My "first" exposure to organometallic chemistry - #chempaperaday

Although I have always been interested in inorganic chemistry, I avoided reading organometallic chemistry papers as much as possible. The reason was that I really loved inorganic chemistry. Especially synthetic methods and coordination chemistry. Well, this summer, I started to read and study basics of organometallic chemistry and this semester I am taking a course where we learn A LOT about it. I now find the field really interesting and open to progress.

We spent almost a month of olefin metathesis and were expected to read tens of papers by the pioneers of the field. I will list them all below and I suggest that you read them ALL. You will notice that they are much better than ANY textbook. Amazing papers, written in such a wonderful way that everything makes so much sense. I will not write the titles of them though. The first list includes papers by Hoveyda, Schrock, Katz, Grubbs about his "First generation" and "Second generation" catalysts, ligand effects, type of olefins, mechanisms of the reactions, some organic synthesis papers where the catalysts were used efficiently etc. The second list is solely on Z-selective olefin metathesis papers by Grubbs, Schrock and Hoveyda (2011-present). I will give the DOI for those ones since I only have PDF's on my computer. I don't really want to open them one by one and write the details. I am sure you can easily find them.

JACS 1976, 1903

JACS 2001, 6543

JACS 2003, 10103

JACS 1992, 5426

JACS 2003, 14901

JACS 2003, 11360

JACS 2000, 1828

JACS 2002, 10779

ACIE 2007, 3860

JACS 2002, 773

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9001_ftp (Angewandte)

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nature09957

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ja210349m

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ja404208a

ja403188t

8395_ftp (Angewandte)

2726_ftp (Angewandte)

1939_ftp (Angewandte)

1968_ftp (Angewandte)

Update: #chempaperaday and other things...

It's been a very long time I haven't written any posts. Well, the Fall semester started and it's been incredibly busy. I teach two lab sections, grade papers, hold office hours, answer tons of emails from students (this was unexpected!), take my own courses and study for them AND do the assignments! I also try to keep my research alive and move on to further steps in my "projects." 

If anyone is wondering, #chempaperaday is still alive and I do read papers almost everyday. The problem is most of these papers are related with my research and I do not want to write about them. Obviously,  I am trying to make new compounds. So, just by following the papers I read, one might figure out what I am onto (more or less). That's why I will keep them to myself.

I have read other papers too. But, as I mentioned above I have been busy and trying to figure out my new life schedule. So, I couldn't really focus on the blog. Tens of different blog post topics and ideas have come to my mind while I was dealing with all those stuff. Now that I am more comfortable with my schedule and more organized, I will write posts more often. The next post is coming tonight!

Thanks if you are reading here.

Shopping for symmetry!

Symmetry is a part of life. In fact, it is really hard to find an object without any symmetry operations. I found some objects for you!

"Why Are There No Terminal Oxo Complexes of the Late Transition Metals? or The Importance of Metal–Ligand π Antibonding Interactions" #chempaperaday 40/365

I was looking for some old papers and found this paper. It's in fact very similar to a lecture in inorganic chemistry. The title is very clear. So, there is not much to add. You can also look for "the oxo wall" to learn more about these complexes.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02603598808035790#preview

It's all about bonding theory and symmetry.

"Who should write books about science? "

This is a question I saw in one of Philip Ball's posts. By the way, in case you don't know, I think Philip Ball is by far THE BEST SCIENCE WRITER. Anyway, I do have my own ideas on the question mentioned here. But, I need to put them together in order to write a post on my own. The reason I wanted to mention the question here is the answer Philip Ball received from a Nobel laureate:

"I have a healthy disregard for anybody and everybody who has not made advances in the field in which they are pontificating."

I do believe that science writers should be SCIENTISTS that know how to write. I see many "science writers" around. But, most of them I think are just bloggers that cover scientific topics. Since they lack in the basics of the science they are writing about, I do not pay much attention to their ideas and writings. Sad but true.

"A Brief History of Catalysis" #chempaperaday Day 39/365

Although everyone might believe that they can define what "catalysis" or a catalyst is, it is really hard to find the correct definition for these terms. Simply and in general, a catalyst is a molecule/ion/element/heat/light etc. that lowers the activation energy of a chemical reaction. So, the reaction will go faster and in the end you'll end up regenerating your catalyst. A simple diagram is shown below.

                                          Catalysis. Source: Wikipedia article

The term catalysis was first introduced to chemistry by Berzelius. The paper I am sharing here is a really nice review on catalysis. In case you are wondering, there is not much "chemistry" in the paper. This is more like a history of science article that divided catalysis into five different periods and lists the major events and scientists chronologically. The five periods according to the authors are : production of alcohol by fermentation, "systematic research and the discovery of new catalytic processes," "industrial applications," synthetic fuel production, synthetic polymers. Of course I do not agree with these general and broad periods. But, as I said this is a really nice paper that gives you enough information on the history of catalysis. 

Catalysis is one of the greatest areas of research in chemistry. We know that enzymes easily catalyze several reactions at physiological conditions. But, when it comes to test tubes, reactors etc., this is not the case. So, discovering (or synthesizing) the right catalyst is not an easy task. It should also be relatively inexpensive and unique so that it stands out among the other catalyst candidates. 

It is free to read and I hope you enjoy the article:

http://image.sciencenet.cn/olddata/kexue.com.cn/upload/blog/file/2008/10/200810102212944318.pdf

#chempaperaday Day 38/365 : "Bringing Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) to Biochemistry: the Work of Helmut Beinert"

EPR is a powerful tool to study paramagnetic centers. So, it is widely used in inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry. In fact, I am not even sure if I should call bioinorganic chemistry as biochemistry. Sometimes I read papers and I can't tell if it is a bioinorganic or biochemistry study. Anyway, the short paper I read today was about Helmut Beinert and how he introduced EPR to biochemistry. Obviously, this led to great discoveries.

It is free to read here:

http://www.jbc.org/content/284/21/e4.full.pdf+html