Search for: All records

The restricted rotation of chemical bonds may lead to the formation of stable, conformationally chiral molecules. While the asymmetry in chiral molecules is generally observed in the presence of one or more stereocenters, asymmetry exhibited by conformational chirality in compounds lacking stereocenters, called atropisomerism, depends on structural and temperature factors that are still not fully understood. This atropisomerism is observed in natural diarylether heptanoids where the length of the intramolecular tether constrains the compounds to isolable enantiomers at room temperature. In this work, we examine the impact tether length has on the activation free energies to isomerization of a diarylether cyclophane substructure with a tether ranging from 6 to 14 carbons. Racemization activation energies are observed to decay from 48 kcal/mol for a 7-carbon tether to 9.2 kcal/mol for a 14-carbon tether. Synthetic efforts to experimentally test these constraints are also presented. This work will likely guide the design and synthesis of novel asymmetric cyclophanes that will be of interest in the catalysis community given the importance of atropisomeric ligands in the field of asymmetric catalysis. 

A set of novel, easily synthesized aluminum complexes, Al(κ2-N,N-2-(methylamino)pyridine)2R (R = Et, iBu) are reported. When subjected to 1 atm of CO2 pressure, each hemilabile pyridine arm dissociates and facilitates cooperative activation of the CO2 substrate reminiscent of a Frustrated Lewis Pair. This reaction has limited precedent for Al/N based Lewis Pair systems, and this is the first system readily shown to sequester multiple equivalents of CO2 per aluminum center. The ethyl variant then reacts further, inserting a third equivalent of CO2 into the aluminum alkyl to generate an aluminum carboxylate. Examples of this type of reactivity are rare under thermal conditions. A joint experimental/computational study validates the proposed reaction mechanism.