Molecular electronics inclusion compounds

Native enzymes show remarkably sharp substrate specificities. Actually, an enzyme can sometimes distinguish a slight difference of shapes between its specific and nonspecific guests, even if the electronic states of both are almost the same. The term molecular recognition is used to describe such ability of the molecule (enzyme). Inclusion compounds are supersimplified, but very appropriate systems for elucidation of the nature of the molecular recognition, since interactions between the inclusion host and a substrate are not more complicated than can be measured or even calculated. In this section, we will survey the recent results on the crystal structures of the inclusion compounds, and based on the information, the probable driving force for the inclusion is discussed in detail. 

Group 2 complexes are formally electron deficient and conformationally floppy only small energies (often only 1-2 kcal mol-1) are required to alter their geometries by large amounts (e.g., bond angles by 20° or more). In such cases, the inclusion of electron-correlation effects becomes critical to an accurate description of the molecules structures. Both HF/MP2 and density functional theory (DFT) methods have been applied to organoalkaline earth compounds. DFT approaches, which implicitly incorporate electron correlation in a computationally efficient form, are generally the more widely used. Molecular orbital calculations that successfully reproduce bent... 

The controversy between Huisgen and Firestone concerning the mechanism for 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition is longstanding.9,11 For nitrile oxide cycloadditions, experimental data have been interpreted either as supportive of a concerted mechanism9 or in favor of a stepwise mechanism with diradical intermediates.11 Theory has compounded, rather than resolved, this problem. Ab initio calculations on the reaction of fulmonitrile oxide with acetylene predict a concerted mechanism at the molecular otbital level,12,13 but a stepwise mechanism after inclusion of extensive electron correlation.14 MNDO predicts a stepwise mechanism with a diradical intermediate.13 The existence of an extended diradical intermediate such as (4 Scheme 2) has been postulated by Firestone in order to account for the occasional formation of 1,4-addition products such as the oxime (5).11 Of course, the intermediates (4) and (5) for the Firestone mechanism do not correspond to the initial transition states in Firestone s theory. These are attained prior to the formation of, and at higher energy than, the intermediates. 

---