Search for: All records

A readily accessible conjugate‐base‐stabilized carboxylic acid (CBSCA) catalyst facilitates highly enantioselective [4+2] cycloaddition reactions of salicylaldehyde‐derived acetals and cyclic enol ethers, resulting in the formation of polycyclic chromanes with oxygenation in the 2‐ and 4‐positions. Stereochemically more complex products can be obtained from racemic enol ethers. Spirocyclic products are also accessible.

 

A readily accessible conjugate‐base‐stabilized carboxylic acid (CBSCA) catalyst facilitates highly enantioselective [4+2] cycloaddition reactions of salicylaldehyde‐derived acetals and cyclic enol ethers, resulting in the formation of polycyclic chromanes with oxygenation in the 2‐ and 4‐positions. Stereochemically more complex products can be obtained from racemic enol ethers. Spirocyclic products are also accessible.

 

Understanding the effect of carbon on the density of hcp (hexagonal-close-packed) Fe-C alloys is essential for modeling the carbon content in the Earth’s inner core. Previous studies have focused on the equations of state of iron carbides that may not be applicable to the solid inner core that may incorporate carbon as dissolved carbon in metallic iron. Carbon substitution in hcp-Fe and its effect on the density have never been experimentally studied. We investigated the compression behavior of Fe-C alloys with 0.31 and 1.37 wt % carbon, along with pure iron as a reference, by in-situ X-ray diffraction measurements up to 135 GPa for pure Fe, and 87 GPa for Fe-0.31C and 109 GPa for Fe-1.37C. The results show that the incorporation of carbon in hcp-Fe leads to the expansion of the lattice, contrary to the known effect in body-centered cubic (bcc)-Fe, suggesting a change in the substitution mechanism or local environment. The data on axial compressibility suggest that increasing carbon content could enhance seismic anisotropy in the Earth’s inner core. The new thermoelastic parameters allow us to develop a thermoelastic model to estimate the carbon content in the inner core when carbon is incorporated as dissolved carbon hcp-Fe. The required carbon contents to explain the density deficit of Earth’s inner core are 1.30 and 0.43 wt % at inner core boundary temperatures of 5000 K and 7000 K, respectively. 

We conducted shock wave experiments on iron carbide Fe₃C up to a Hugoniot pressure of 245 GPa. The correlation between the particle velocity (u_p) and shock wave velocity (u_s) can be fitted into a linear relationship,u_s= 4.627(±0.073) + 1.614(±0.028)u_p. The density‐pressure relationship is consistent with a single‐phase compression without decomposition. The inference is further supported by the comparison of the observed Hugoniot density with the calculated Hugoniot curves of possible decomposition products. The new Hugoniot data combined with the reported 300‐K isothermal compression data yielded a Grüneisen parameter ofγ= 2.23(7.982/ρ)^0.29. The thermal equation of state of Fe₃C is further used to calculate the density profile of Fe₃C along the Earth's adiabatic geotherm. The density of Fe₃C was found to be too low (by ~5%) to match the observed density in the Earth's inner core, and Fe₃C is unlikely a dominant component of the inner core.