The framework has a planar group attached to a straight C–N–N axis. Two useful octet resonance contributors are
In the left contributor, the terminal nitrogen has two lone pairs; in the right, the terminal nitrogen and carbon each have one. Each formula has 16 valence electrons and zero net electric charge. The double-headed resonance arrow changes the electronic allocation while retaining the same nuclear framework; these are not two different equilibrium species.
An internally consistent elementary orbital hybridisation model is at carbon and at both nitrogen atoms; the hydrogens use orbitals. The three carbon hybrids form two C–H sigma bonds and one C–N sigma bond, leaving one perpendicular p orbital. The central nitrogen uses opposite hybrids for its two collinear sigma connections, leaving two perpendicular p orbitals for the two pi systems.
At terminal nitrogen, one hybrid points toward the central nitrogen and the other houses an axial lone pair. One perpendicular p orbital forms the second, N–N-only pi system; the other participates in the three-atom C–N–N pi system. This description remains the same across both resonance contributors; counting lone-pair domains in just one drawing and assigning a different terminal hybridisation to each contributor would obscure the delocalization. orbital hybridisation is a useful choice of localized basis, not a uniquely measurable label: advanced treatments of diazomethane require a superposition of bonding patterns.[ref]
The four sigma bonds are the two C–H connections, C–N and N–N, containing eight electrons. A terminal-nitrogen axial lone pair contains two more. Of the remaining six electrons, two occupy an N–N pi bond lying in the molecular plane, while four occupy a perpendicular three-centre four-electron pi bond extending over C–N–N. There are therefore 16 valence electrons in total.
For orientation, a three-site model with equal on-site energy and adjacent interaction gives perpendicular pi levels at , , and . The lower two are doubly occupied and the upper is empty. The middle level has a terminal-end combination with little central-atom amplitude; unequal C and N orbital energies change its coefficients and make it only approximately nonbonding.
The highest occupied molecular orbital is the upper occupied perpendicular pi orbital, with substantial carbon amplitude, broadly above the strongly bonding sigma framework and the lower occupied pi orbitals. It is not the terminal axial nitrogen lone pair. Real diazomethane has C–N bonding and N–N antibonding character in this frontier orbital, rather than being an exactly nonbonding equal-site model. Photoelectron and Rydberg-state experiments support this assignment.[ref]
Figure 1.
Original qualitative decomposition of diazomethane into four sigma bonds, an axial lone pair and two perpendicular pi systems
. Details.
First, proton transfer from acetic acid to the carbon of diazomethane gives methyldiazonium and an acetate ion:
Draw an electron-pair arrow from carbon, using the carbon-negative resonance contributor, to the acidic hydrogen, and another from the acid O–H bond to oxygen. Second, an acetate oxygen attacks the diazonium methyl carbon by an SN2 reaction; an arrow from the C–N bond to nitrogen expels neutral :
The acid's hydroxyl hydrogen has become the third hydrogen of the newly installed methyl group. This is a methyl-transfer sequence driven by formation of molecular nitrogen, without forming a free methyl carbocation or invoking Fischer esterification.
For the ordinary ester, the carbon nucleophile of a grignard reagent attacks the carbonyl carbon and moves the C=O pi pair onto oxygen. Collapse of the tetrahedral intermediate expels ethoxide, transiently giving . This ketone is more electrophilic than the starting ester because it lacks an alkoxy group's stabilizing resonance donation. A second equivalent of the grignard reagent therefore adds to it before isolation:
The negatively charged intermediates are associated with magnesium counterions. Merely reducing the amount of reagent to one equivalent does not generally trap the ketone selectively; it can leave unreacted ester together with the double-addition product.
In the first successful preparation, magnesium insertion into the primary C–Br bond gives n-butylmagnesium bromide. The carbon chain has four carbons, so its acetylation produces hexan-2-one, , not pentan-2-one. Attack on acetic anhydride forms . Coordination of the anhydride-derived oxygens to magnesium can stabilize this tetrahedral addition complex. Under suitably cold, controlled-addition conditions it survives sufficiently to delay release of the free ketone until aqueous work-up has destroyed the remaining grignard reagent. Protonation followed by collapse releases acetate/acetic acid and the ketone.
This interpretation has direct experimental precedent: Melvin S. Newman and William T. Booth Jr. obtained methyl ketones by cold addition of grignard reagents to acetic anhydride, attributing selectivity to a persistent addition complex. The temperature and reagent-addition regime are genuine conditions on the explanation, rather than proof that an anhydride can never undergo overaddition; the exam scheme omits them.[ref]
For the benzonitrile route, n-butyl attacks the nitrile carbon and one C≡N pi pair moves to nitrogen, producing the magnesium ketimine salt . This anionic nitrogen-containing intermediate resists a second nucleophilic addition much more than a neutral carbonyl does. The ketone appears only during acidic aqueous work-up, after organomagnesium has been quenched. Protonation gives the iminium ion; water attacks its carbon, proton transfers give a carbinolamine, and C–N cleavage from its nitrogen-protonated form produces the protonated ketone and ammonia, followed by deprotonation. In the acidic mixture ammonia is present largely as ammonium. This sequence explains why nitrile addition stops at a ketone without requiring the ketone itself to be resistant to grignard reagents.
The atom-labelled hydrolysis sequence is
Water's lone pair attacks the iminium carbon while its C=N pi pair moves to nitrogen; the carbinolamine oxygen then reforms C=O while the C–N pair moves to the departing protonated amino group. Final deprotonation gives the neutral ketone. The arrows involving protonation and hydrolysis also exchange protons with the acidic aqueous reservoir; the condensed sequence tracks the carbon–nitrogen and carbon–oxygen transformations rather than displaying every solvent molecule.
Figure 1.
Original electron-flow summary contrasting ester overaddition with anhydride trapping and nitrile hydrolysis
. Details.
Amine nitrogen binds the carbon end of CO; Mg binds through oxygen. The polarized C=O bonds make carbon electrophilic and oxygen electron rich. An amine nitrogen lone pair therefore donates toward carbon, potentially giving a carbamate-like adduct after proton transfer. The hard Lewis acid Mg accepts an oxygen lone pair, either from coordinated CO or from an oxygen of a captured carbamate species. Simply reversing these assignments because nitrogen and oxygen both have lone pairs would put two electron-pair donors together without accounting for the electrophilic site.
The local binding pattern does not by itself determine the full proton-transfer state or whether cooperative chains form; those depend on the framework and amine arrangement. A documented diamine-appended framework shows cooperative carbon-dioxide insertion and ammonium carbamate chain formation, illustrating one possible implementation.[ref]
To regenerate the material, lower the CO chemical potential using reduced pressure or a CO-free purge, and, where binding is exothermic, heat the framework to favour desorption. The temperature must remain compatible with framework stability. This reverses adsorption or reversible chemisorption; it does not require permanently destroying the metal–organic framework.
Nitrogen-bound is favoured. Eu(III) is a small, highly charged hard Lewis acid, whereas the nitrogen end of thiocyanate is harder than its more polarizable sulfur end. The hard and soft acids and bases argument therefore predicts N coordination, together with coordination through both nitrogen atoms of each bipyridine.
The bipyrimidine ligand has two distinct N,N-chelating pockets. It can use one pocket as a terminal bidentate ligand, or use both to bridge two Eu centres. Take all three nitrates per Eu to be bidentate O,O donors.
A consistent structure for B is , with two terminal, singly chelating bpm ligands. Six nitrate oxygens plus four bpm nitrogens give coordination number ten. The unused pocket of each terminal bpm points away from that Eu centre.
For C, use a dimer . Place one bpm between the metals, chelating each Eu through a different N,N pocket. Add one terminal bidentate bpm to each Eu and three bidentate nitrates to each Eu. Each metal again has donor atoms, while the overall Eu:bpm ratio is . In this model all four nitrogens of the bridging bpm are used, but only two of each terminal bpm are used.
Both structures have their accessible coordination sites occupied by multidentate ligands, and the chelate effect favours retention of those donors over adding or exchanging a solvent molecule. This accounts for the absence of coordinated solvent while allowing a higher coordination number than the thiocyanate example. Stoichiometry alone does not exclude polymeric alternatives or different nitrate binding modes; the monomer/dimer pair is an explicit internally consistent prediction.
Disconnect the amide into 2-propylhexanoic acid and N-methyl-2-(4-hexylphenyl)ethylamine. This keeps the nitrogen substituents distinct: one is Me and the other is the two-carbon aryl side chain. The acid's alpha carbon must bear both n-butyl and n-propyl groups.
For the acid fragment, esterify the supplied hexanoic acid, form its ester enolate with LDA, and alkylate with 1-iodopropane:
hydrolysis gives 2-propylhexanoic acid; conversion with gives the acyl chloride for the final coupling. Limit the alkylating reagent and isolate the monoalkylated ester to avoid overalkylation.
For the aryl fragment, use another portion of hexanoic acid to make hexanoyl chloride. A Friedel-Crafts acylation of bromobenzene with this reagent and gives ortho and para products; isolate the para bromoaryl ketone. A Wolff-Kishner reduction converts into without deliberately hydrogenolyzing the aryl bromide. Acylation followed by carbonyl reduction installs an unrearranged n-hexyl group; direct Friedel–Crafts alkylation is a less reliable way to do that.
Convert the retained aryl bromide into its grignard reagent, open ethylene oxide, and work up to obtain . Oxidize the primary alcohol to under conditions that stop at the aldehyde, then perform reductive amination with methylamine and sodium triacetoxyborohydride. Excess methylamine helps favour the desired secondary amine over further alkylation. Finally acylate that secondary amine with the isolated acyl chloride, using a separate base to capture HCl.
The final amide has an N-methyl group, the para n-hexyl phenethyl group, and the required n-butyl/n-propyl acyl branching. The carbon check is in the acyl fragment plus in the amine fragment, giving overall. No absolute stereochemistry is specified at the acid alpha carbon.
Disconnect the N–cyclohexyl bond as a late reductive amination of a primary amine with cyclohexanone. Disconnect the exocyclic methylene as a Wittig methylenation of a substituted cyclohexanone. The useful ring precursor is 3-methyl-5-substituted cyclohex-2-en-1-one, accessible by a Robinson annulation. The pendant substituent throughout ring construction should be .
Start with nucleophilic substitution of the supplied bromo ester by cyanide:
Reduce the nitrile selectively to the primary amine while retaining the ester, for example by controlled catalytic hydrogenation with Raney nickel in the presence of ammonia, and trap the amine promptly as its Boc carbamate. Avoid heating or concentrating the free amino ester, which can cyclize to a lactam. lithium aluminium hydride would be unsuitable at this stage because it also reduces the ester.
Partial reduction of the protected ester with DIBAL at low temperature gives . The carbon of the original nitrile is now the methylene nearest nitrogen; the original ester carbonyl is the aldehyde carbon. Condense this aldehyde with acetone and dehydrate to .
Now add the enolate of a second acetone molecule in a Michael addition. With , the resulting chain is
Intramolecular aldol condensation gives 3-Me-5-R-cyclohex-2-en-1-one. The beta methyl derives from the carbonyl end attacked in the ring closure; the pendant aminoalkyl chain remains at C5. Hydrogenate the ring C=C selectively, retaining the ketone, then methylenate the ketone with preformed . Do the hydrogenation before installing the exocyclic methylene so that it is not hydrogenated away.
Remove Boc under brief mild conditions, checking for acid-induced exocyclic alkene isomerization. reductive amination of the resulting primary amine with cyclohexanone, followed by selective imine reduction, installs the secondary N-cyclohexyl group. Use controlled stoichiometry to suppress tertiary amine formation. The methyl and four-carbon aminoalkyl substituents occupy the required 1,3-related ring positions, with the exocyclic methylene at the former carbonyl. No ring stereochemistry is specified. The target contains eighteen carbons: six ring carbons, one ring methyl, one methylene, four in the linker, and six in the N-cyclohexyl group.
For the CO and NCO cases, the added fragment acts as a Lewis base at boron, rather than becoming a new skeletal vertex. Both have a triangular framework. A useful localized drawing has three groups, one B–H–B bridge between two of them, and the donor attached to the third boron. The boron–boron framework includes three-centre two-electron bonds; its edges should not all be read as ordinary independent two-electron single bonds.
For the neutral carbonyl adduct, attach CO through carbon, giving at the donor-bearing site. For the anionic isocyanate adduct, attach through nitrogen, giving a B–N=C=O connectivity and the overall charge. In both drawings the hydrogen count is . Weak or asymmetric additional B–H contacts can distort this idealized drawing; a hydrogen-rich borane is not fully characterized by a polygon alone. The carbonyl triborane structure was established in the original borane study.[ref]
The rhodium fragment is instead a skeletal building block. Its neutral electron count is , so it contributes two skeletal electrons, like a BH vertex. Combining it with gives skeletal electrons, or six pairs, for four vertices. A consistent low-vertex structure is a tetrahedral skeleton, with the fragment capping the boron triangle. Keep the terminal Rh–H ligand distinct from the seven hydrogens on the borane portion. The latter can again be represented by three terminal groups and a B–H–B bridge. The total formula then contains eight hydrogens outside the phenyl groups. Treating Rh as a pendant one-centre Lewis base would miss its skeletal role.
The target is 5-Aminohexanoic acid, . Disconnect its terminal amine/carboxylic-acid relationship through hydrolysis of 6-methylpiperidin-2-one. This six-membered lactam follows from a regioselected Beckmann ring expansion of 2-methylcyclopentanone oxime.
Start with cyclopentanone. Form its enolate with lithium diisopropylamide in dry THF at low temperature, add methyl iodide, then quench to obtain 2-methylcyclopentanone. Control the methyl iodide/base stoichiometry to suppress a second alkylation. React the ketone with hydroxylamine to form its oxime and select the geometrical oxime isomer in which the bond to the methyl-substituted adjacent ring carbon is anti to the departing oxime oxygen group.
Activate the oxime, for example under appropriate acid-promoted Beckmann conditions. The anti methyl-bearing C–C bond migrates onto nitrogen as the N–O-derived leaving group departs, inserting nitrogen between the original carbonyl carbon and the methyl-substituted ring carbon. Hydration/tautomerization gives 6-methylpiperidin-2-one. The opposite oxime geometry would insert nitrogen on the other side and ultimately place methyl at a different position in the amino acid; oxime geometry is therefore an essential part of this proposal.
Hydrolyse the lactam with aqueous acid and heat, then adjust the work-up to the desired acid/ammonium form. Cleavage of its acyl–nitrogen bond opens the ring to after suitable neutralization. All five original cyclopentanone carbons are retained, and the one methyl carbon comes from methyl iodide. A racemic mixture product is appropriate to the stereochemically unspecified target. The reaction sequence is an organic ring-expansion synthesis and requires no biological transformation.
Figure 1.
Original carbon-numbered route through the anti oxime and ring-expanded lactam to the amino acid
. Details.
Disconnect the tertiary amide into cyclohex-3-ene-1-carboxylic acid and the secondary amine . The acid-derived ring is an immediate Diels–Alder disconnection: buta-1,3-diene plus the indicated methyl acrylate gives methyl cyclohex-3-ene-1-carboxylate. Heating, or suitable Lewis-acid activation of the dienophile, forms the two new sigma bonds and leaves the diene's internal double bond as the ring alkene.
Hydrolyse this ester to the acid. Convert it to its acid chloride with oxalyl chloride or thionyl chloride, and react with the secondary amine in the presence of a base to capture HCl. The tertiary amide now contains the complete cyclohexene acyl fragment; direct conjugate addition of the amine to methyl acrylate before ring construction would give the wrong connectivity.
Prepare the amine by reductive amination of 4-phenylbutan-2-one, , with ethylamine, using sodium triacetoxyborohydride or another iminium-selective reducing system. This places nitrogen on , not on a terminal methylene. If a route from simpler carbon compounds is wanted, crossed aldol condensation of acetone with benzaldehyde gives , and selective C=C reduction gives the required ketone before reductive amination.
The acid branch retains the acrylic carbonyl as the amide carbonyl; the amine branch supplies both N-ethyl and N-(4-phenylbutan-2-yl) substituents. The unlabelled stereogenic centres may be racemic mixture. This sequence separates ring formation from amide formation and avoids invoking uncontrolled alkylation of a tertiary amide nitrogen.
Figure 1.
Original two-branch synthesis combining a Diels–Alder acid fragment with a reductively aminated secondary amine
. Details.
acetone first forms a proline enamine by reversible iminium formation and alpha-deprotonation. The enamine attacks the aromatic aldehyde in a hydrogen-bonded arrangement involving the catalyst's carboxylic acid. hydrolysis of the resulting iminium releases the beta-hydroxyketone and regenerates proline. The usual L-proline arrangement gives the secondary alcohol.
The sterically crowded aryl–amide axis is selected at the same bond-forming step: rapid rotation in the aldehyde permits the catalyst to react preferentially with the conformer that puts the smaller carbonyl-oxygen side of the amide towards the approaching aldol transition structure and the bulky diisopropylamino side away. A chair-like enamine–aldehyde model minimizes the interaction of the amide with the catalyst-side axial hydrogen; reversing the amide orientation creates the less favourable diastereomeric transition state. Replacing planar CHO by tetrahedral CH(OH)CHCOMe then raises the rotation barrier and traps the axis. This is a dynamic kinetic resolution, not resolution of two configurationally stable starting atropisomers.
To specify the predicted major axis without relying on a flat bond-line formula, look from the aromatic ipso carbon towards the amide carbonyl carbon. Put the higher-priority aryl path, the trimethylsilyl-bearing ortho side, at nine o'clock. The preferred model puts the carbonyl oxygen at approximately six o'clock and the diisopropylamino group at twelve o'clock. This is using the near-to-far high-priority convention; oxygen outranks nitrogen at the far end. Coupled with the alcohol assignment, the model predicts . The drawing defines the configuration even if an alternative viewing direction is used. The dynamic-resolution mechanism is established by the primary aldol study; the product-axis assignment here is a stereochemical-model prediction for the printed substrate.[ref]
One valid asymmetric route uses N-Boc-(R)-proline as a chiral starting material. Convert its acid to the Weinreb amide with N,O-dimethylhydroxylamine and a coupling reagent such as EDC, then add phenylmagnesium bromide at low temperature. chelation of the magnesium tetrahedral intermediate prevents a second addition; aqueous workup releases the phenyl ketone. Reduce it with sodium borohydride, separate the resulting alcohol diastereomers, and retain the one with configuration at both pyrrolidine C2 and the benzylic carbinol. This is an asymmetric synthesis through a pre-existing enantiopure centre, even though the final reduction need not be perfectly diastereoselective. If the other protected alcohol is isolated, Mitsunobu esterification with a carboxylic acid followed by ester hydrolysis inverts just the carbinol centre. Keeping nitrogen Boc-protected during that inversion avoids neighbouring-amine participation. Mild Boc removal followed by reductive benzylation with benzaldehyde and sodium triacetoxyborohydride gives D, the amino alcohol. Use conditions that avoid epimerizing the amino ketone.
For ring expansion, activate D's alcohol with methanesulfonyl chloride and a tertiary amine base. Its own tertiary nitrogen attacks the benzylic carbon from the back, displacing mesylate with inversion and making a fused aziridinium ion. Acetate, supplied as a soluble acetate salt, attacks the original pyrrolidine C2 from the opposite face and breaks the old C2–N bond. The new N–benzylic-C bond is retained, incorporating that side-chain carbon into the six-membered ring. Inversion at the two successively attacked carbons gives the cis acetate/phenyl piperidine E in the displayed orientation. Attack at the benzylic carbon instead would simply open the three-membered ion back to a five-membered-ring derivative; specifying the attacked carbon is the crucial regiochemical step.
The large resonance at the smallest field-to-normal angle identifies an unoccupied orbital whose transition dipole is mainly normal to the surface. An N 1s initial state is approximately spherical; the dipole matrix element for a transition is directed along the normal to the adsorbate's aromatic plane. Consequently the adsorbate rings lie predominantly parallel to the copper surface. For perfectly flat molecules the resonance strength scales as , which decreases strongly from to as observed.
For azimuthally disordered molecular normals tilted by from the surface normal, averaging gives . Strong dichroism therefore implies a large orientational order parameter, but the plotted qualitative curves alone do not determine a unique tilt angle or distribution. Background subtraction, incident polarization and intensity normalization would be needed for such a fit. This experiment identifies the orientation of the pi system; it does not by itself identify a particular nitrogen–copper bonding topology.
The initial nitrogen environment loses intensity on heating, and a lower-binding-energy component becomes prominent near the highest temperatures. A change of surface chemical species accompanies loss or conversion of the original adsorbate. Plausible processes include thermally activated decomposition with nitrogen-containing fragments remaining on copper, desorption of intact material or fragments, and rearrangement of the coordination environment. The extra components at intermediate temperatures suggest coexistence rather than a rigid, uniform shift of every molecule.
The individual curves have vertical offsets, so their baseline height is not a coverage measurement. Integrated, sensitivity-corrected N and C peak areas, a clean heated substrate control, and evolved-gas mass spectrometry would help distinguish loss of material from chemical conversion. binding energy alone cannot establish a unique fragment structure: local charge, metallic screening and coordination all affect it.
Each primary amine arm of 2 condenses with one aldehyde 1, eliminating three waters overall and forming a tripodal tris(pyridylimine) ligand . The three imine nitrogens and the three adjacent pyridine nitrogens chelate one Fe(II), giving , with three outward-facing terminal pyridines still free. The central tertiary amine is the tethering apex, not a seventh donor in the six-coordinate model.
The Fe coordination is approximately octahedral and is propeller-chiral: three bidentate chelates can have or configuration. Achiral starting components and conditions give a racemic population unless a separate resolving influence is introduced. imine condensation and metal coordination cooperate in subcomponent self-assembly; the metal template selects the convergent ligand arrangement.
The secondary hydroxylamine condenses with formaldehyde. nitrogen attacks the carbonyl carbon, giving a carbinolamine; proton transfer and loss of water generate the tethered nitrone , where is the entire bicyclic substituent attached to nitrogen in D. Molecular sieves remove water, favouring this condensation.
The nitrone undergoes an intramolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition with the retained cyclohexene double bond. To define E precisely, label the former oxime carbon , the adjacent upper ring junction , the other junction , and the alkene carbons and such that the chain from to the more remote alkene terminus is . Let be the new formaldehyde-derived nitrone methylene. The cycloaddition forms and O–, retains N–O and N–, and changes N= and into single bonds. The new five-membered heterocycle is N––––O. These connections, together with the original bicycle, specify the bridged isoxazolidine E.
The inwardly tethered cycloaddition is suprafacial at the alkene and preserves the existing carbon stereocentres; the C–C and C–O additions occur on the same accessible alkene face. The pre-existing N-substituent orientation restricts which fold can bring both reacting ends together without crossing the bridge. This is a genuine two-new-bond cycloaddition, not a Mannich reaction followed by unrelated oxygenation.
Figure 1.
Original atom-labelled connectivity model of the nitrone cycloaddition product E
. Details.
methyl fluorosulfonate alkylates the tertiary isoxazolidine nitrogen, giving a quaternary N-methyl ammonium salt; the methyl remains attached to nitrogen in F. hydride from lithium aluminium hydride then cleaves the N–O bond, releasing the corresponding oxygen as an aluminium-bound alkoxide while restoring neutral tertiary amine nitrogen. Aqueous workup protonates the alkoxide to give the alcohol.
Thus the C–O bond made in the cycloaddition survives as the alcohol-bearing C–O bond, and the formaldehyde-derived methylene survives as the extra carbon between nitrogen and the carbon framework. The N–O bond is the one removed. N-methylation followed by reductive N–O cleavage gives the bridged amino alcohol F without requiring cleavage of its newly formed C–C bond or hydrogenation of a nonexistent residual alkene.