Imidazoles, calculations electronic structure

The 7r-electron structures and energies of the singlet tt-tt transitions for a number of l/7-pyrrolo[l,2-a]imidazoles (39), l//-pyrrolo[l,2-6]-s-triazoles (40) and l/f-pyrrolo[2,l-c]-s-triazoles (41) were calculated by the MO LCAO method within the semiempirical self-consistent field (SCF) approximation. A comparison of the data shows that the maximum... 

The electronic structure of the imidazolium cations is of interest because it impacts on the hydrogen bond acceptor and donor properties of ionic liquids. This in turn relates to the penchant of the solvent to coordinate to, or react with the solvated species. The imidazolium cation is isoelectronic with the carbene -like imidazole-2-ylidene. Theoretical calculations on deprotonation of the unsubstituted imidazolium cations determine pfCaS of24.90 and 32.97 for the proton at the and C positions... 

Calculations of EPR parameters were also performed on some of the complexes. Experimental EPR spectra are either axial (gx = gy-, axial type 1 copper proteins) or rhombic (other blue copper proteins). The results indicate that the geometry is more important than the electronic structure for the rhom-bicity of the spectrum the optimized trigonal structure of Cu(imidazole)2(SCH3)(S(CH3)2) and the crystal structure of plastocyanin both give an axial spectrum, while both the crystal structure of nitrite reductase and the other optimized model of Cu(imidazole)2(SCH3)(S(CH3)2)" give a rhombic spectrum, although the latter structure is mainly n bonded with... 

Irradiation of matrix-isolated imidazole-2-carboxylic acid gave the 2,3-dihydro-imidazol-2-ylidene-C02 complex (31) characterized by IR spectroscopy and calculated to lie 15.9 kcal mol above the starting material. A series of non-aromatic nucleophilic carbenes (32) were prepared by desulfurization of the corresponding thiones by molten potassium in boiling THF. The most hindered of the series (32 R = Bu) is stable indefinitely under exclusion of air and water and can be distilled without decomposition. The less hindered carbenes slowly dimerize to the corresponding alkenes. Stable aminoxy- and aminothiocarbenes (33 X = O, S) were prepared by deprotonation of iminium salts with lithium amide bases. The carbene carbon resonance appears at 260-297 ppm in the NMR spectrum and an X-ray structure determination of an aminooxycarbene indicated that electron donation from the nitrogen is more important than that from oxygen. These carbenes do not dimerize. 

The work of Taddei et al.230 on imidazol2,1 -6]thiazole 337 and derivatives has interesting implications on the structure of azapen-talenes, and an important aspect of this study is that the molecular geometry used for calculations on 6-phenylimidazo[2,l-6]thiazole 417 was obtained from X-ray structure determinations130b (Section V,A). The reactivity of this system (Scheme 18, Section IV,C,4,b) is better correlated with Tr-electron densities than with total charges, and 7r-bond orders (by the PPP method) show that the thiazole part of the molecule is more localized than the imidazole part (Section VII). Proton chemical shifts, except that of the H2 proton a to sulfur (Section V,G,2), vary linearly with the total charge carried by the ring carbon atoms. 

The conclusion from these studies is that the stability of the imidazol-2-ylidene-type systems, 102, results mainly from the presence of the two a-nitrogen atoms which stabilize the metallylene by electron donation from the nitrogen lone-pair to the empty p orbital on M, as shown in resonance structure 104a. The calculations predict a stabilizing... 

The same type of calculations have been performed using experimental X-ray structure factors on crystalline phosphoric acid, 7V-acetyl-a,P-dehydrophenyl-alamine methylamide, and N-acetyl-1 -tryptophan methylamide by Souhassou [60] on urea, 9-methyladenosine, and imidazole by Stewart [32] and on 1-alanine [61] and annulene derivatives [62] by Destro and co-workers. The latter authors collected their X-ray data at 16 K [63]. Stewart [32] showed that the positions of the (3, -1) critical points from the promolecule are very close to those of the multipole electron density, but that large differences appear in comparing the density, the Laplacian maps, and the ellipticities at the critical points. Destro et al. [67] showed that the results obtained may be slightly dependent on the refinement model. 

A reactivity index suitable for use in Equation 1 was calculated by using the simple molecular orbital techniques described by the Pullmans (14). Many indexes may be deduced from this type of procedure. The one that seemed to have the most significance for the correlation was the energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). This index is a relative measure of the ability of an electron to be transferred to an acceptor molecule. The calculations were performed on the substituted phenol in the imidazoline structure. This simplification was made since it could be assumed that any perturbation caused by the imidazole would be insulated from the rest of the molecule by the methylene group. 

Cobalt Complexes. A fair number of complexes of cobalt have been studied theoretically. Veillard and co-workers have studied the Schiff base adduct Co(acacen)L02 (L = none, H2O, CO, CN", imidazole) and the porphyrin complex Co(porph)(NH3)02 using ab initio LCAO SCF methods. The calculations show the structure to be more stable than the if a linear structure is also found to be unstable. The most important interaction is that between the cobalt d a orbital and the in- plane rg orbital. The interactions of the in-plane jig orbital with the dyz orbital and TTg (i) with dxz, although present, are much less than in the analogous iron complexes as a result of the tighter binding of the d-orbitals in cobalt. The unpaired electron is localised essentially in the Tig (1) orbital of dioxygen. 

Attempts to correlate reaction mechanisms, electron density calculations and experimental results have met with only limited success. As mentioned in the previous chapter (Section 4.06.2), the predicted orders of electrophilic substitution for imidazole (C-5 > -2 > -4) and benzimidazole (C-7>-6>-5>-4 -2) do not take into account the tautomeric equivalence of the 4- and 5-positions of imidazole and the 4- and 7-, 5- and 6-positions of benzimidazole. When this is taken into account the predictions are in accord with the observed orientations of attack in imidazole. Much the same predictions can be made by considering the imidazole molecule to be a combination of pyrrole and pyridine (74) — the most likely site for electrophilic attack is C-5. Furthermore, while sets of resonance structures for the imidazole and benzimidazole neutral molecules (Schemes 1 and 2, Section 4.06.2) suggest that all ring carbons have some susceptibility to electrophilic attack, consideration of the stabilities of the expected tr-intermediates (Scheme 29) supports the commonly observed preference for 5- (or 4-) substitution. In benzimidazole attack usually occurs first at C-5 and a second substituent enters at C-6 unless other substituent effects intervene. 

---