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This work was supported by MOST (grant no. 2016YFA0203302), NSFC (grant nos. 21875042, 21634003 and 51573027), STCSM (grant nos. 16JC1400702 and 18QA1400800), SHMEC (grant no. 2017-01-07-00-07-E00062) and Yanchang Petroleum Group. This work was also supported by The Programme for Professor of Eastern Scholar at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning. This work was supported by the Ontario Research Fund—Research Excellence Program, NSERC and the CIFAR Bio-Inspired Solar Energy program. This work has also benefited from the use of the SGM beamlines at Canadian Light Source; the 1W1B and 4B9B beamlines at the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility; the BL14W1, BL08U1-A beamline at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility; and the 44A beamline at Taiwan Photon Source (TPS). Mossbauer spectroscopy measurements were conducted at the Advanced Photon Source, a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. We acknowledge the Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland, for provision of synchrotron radiation beamtime at the beamline SuperXAS of the SLS and would like to thank M. Nachtegaal for assistance. We thank M. Garcia-Melchor and Y. Zhang for discussions on DFT calculations. We thank J. Wu for the assistance with the TEM measurements. We thank R. Wolowiec and D. Kopilovic for their assistance. For computer time, this research used the resources of the Supercomputing Laboratory at KAUST.

The combination of well-defined molecular cavities and chemical functionality makes crystalline porous solids attractive for a great number of technological applications, from catalysis to gas separation. However, in contrast to other widely applied synthetic solids such as polymers, the lack of processability of crystalline extended solids hampers their application. In this work, we demonstrate that metal–organic frameworks, a type of highly crystalline porous solid, can be made solution processable via outer surface functionalization using N-heterocyclic carbene ligands. Selective outer surface functionalization of relatively large nanoparticles (250 nm) of the well-known zeolitic imidazolate framework ZIF-67 allows for the stabilization of processable dispersions exhibiting permanent porosity. The resulting type III porous liquids can either be directly deployed as liquid adsorbents or be co-processed with state-of-the-art polymers to yield highly loaded mixed matrix membranes with excellent mechanical properties and an outstanding performance in the challenging separation of propylene from propane. We anticipate that this approach can be extended to other metal–organic frameworks and other applications. Solution processability is required for many industrial processes, but metal–organic frameworks are in general not dispersible, hindering their application. Here, a surface modification is reported that allows porous liquid formation and so synthesis of highly loaded and mechanically robust mixed matrix membranes.

Cascade processes are gaining momentum in heterogeneous catalysis. The combination of several catalytic solids within one reactor has shown great promise for the one-step valorization of C1-feedstocks. The combination of metal-based catalysts and zeolites in the gas phase hydrogenation of CO2 leads to a large degree of product selectivity control, defined mainly by zeolites. However, a great deal of mechanistic understanding remains unclear: metal-based catalysts usually lead to complex product compositions that may result in unexpected zeolite reactivity. Here we present an in-depth multivariate analysis of the chemistry involved in eight different zeolite topologies when combined with a highly active Fe-based catalyst in the hydrogenation of CO2 to olefins, aromatics, and paraffins. Solid-state NMR spectroscopy and computational analysis demonstrate that the hybrid nature of the active zeolite catalyst and its preferred CO2-derived reaction intermediates (CO/ester/ketone/hydrocarbons, i.e., inorganic-organic supramolecular reactive centers), along with 10 MR-zeolite topology, act as descriptors governing the ultimate product selectivity., Nature Communications, 12 (1), ISSN:2041-1723

Unsaturated carbon–carbon bonds are one of the most common and important structural motifs in many organic molecules, stimulating the continuous development of general, efficient and practical strategies for their functionalization. Here, we report a one-pot difunctionalization of alkynes via a photoredox/nickel dual-catalysed three-component cross-coupling reaction under mild conditions, providing access to a series of highly important tri-substituted alkenes. Notably, in contrast to traditional methods that are based on the steric hindrance of the substrates to control the reaction selectivity, both E- and Z-isomers of tri-substituted alkenes, which are often energetically close, can be obtained by choosing an appropriate photocatalyst with a suitable triplet state energy. Beyond the immediate practicality of this transformation, this newly developed methodology might inspire the development of diverse and important one-pot functionalizations of carbon–carbon multiple bonds via photoredox and transition-metal dual-catalysed multicomponent reactions. The synthesis of stereodefined alkenes is challenging, and often relies on the steric bias of the substituents. Here the authors report a photoredox/nickel catalysed difunctionalization of alkynes, giving access to either E- or Z-tri-substituted alkenes, depending on the photocatalyst used.

Bis(phenoxy-imine) complexes of zirconium or titanium, a type of Fenokishi-Imin (FI) catalysts, allow the production of polyethylenes with well-defined bimodal molecular weight distributions. Interestingly, by substitution of phenyl rings in the bis(phenoxy-imine) ligands by perfluorinated phenyl rings, the polymerization reaches a desired unimodal behaviour. These catalysts have 3 isomers of similar energy that can be easily interconverted. It is likely that the bimodal behaviour is due to the coexistence of more than one isomer in the reaction vessel. Here, we perform static and dynamic DFT calculations to understand the isomerization of the catalytic active species. We analyze the relative Gibbs energies of the different isomers and the barriers for the isomerization processes. Further characterization of the isomers is obtained through stereo maps, aromaticity measures, and NCI plots. Our results show that by changing the phenyl group by a perfluorinated phenyl ring, one of the isomers is particularly stabilized, thus explaining the unimodal behaviour of the polyethylene production process S.E. acknowledges financial support through IFUG2019 Ph.D. fellowship from Universitat de Girona (UdG) and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC). A.P. is a Serra Húnter Fellow. A.P. and M.S. thank the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain for projects CTQ2014-59832-JIN, PGC2018-097722-B-I00 and CTQ2017-85341-P; Generalitat de Catalunya for project 2017SGR39, Xarxa de Referència en Química Teòrica i Computacional, and ICREA Academia prize 2019 to A.P. N.B.-L. appreciates Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute (IPPI) for all of the supports provided under the grant number of 43794110. We thank support by Mitsui Chemicals, Inc

Quantum confinement effect (QCE), an essential physical phenomenon of semiconductors when the size becomes comparable to the exciton Bohr radius, typically results in quite different physical properties of low-dimensional materials from their bulk counterparts and can be exploited to enhance the device performance in various optoelectronic applications. Here, taking CsPbBr3 as an example, we reported QCE in all-inorganic halide perovskite in two-dimensional (2D) nanoplates. Blue shifts in optical absorption and photoluminescence spectra were found to be stronger in thinner nanoplates than that in thicker nanoplates, whose thickness lowered below ~7 nm. The exciton binding energy results showed similar trend as that obtained for the optical absorption and photoluminescence. Meanwile, the function of integrated intensity and full width at half maximum and temperature also showed similar results, further supporting our conclusions. The results displayed the QCE in all-inorganic halide perovskite nanoplates and helped to design the all-inorganic halide perovskites with desired optical properties.

In this work, we study the potential catalytic role of previously identified Mn(I)-PNN complexes in the Claisen–Tishchenko reaction. An in-depth investigation of the reaction mechanism suggests that, after activation of the 16e pre-catalyst, a hydrogenated 18e active species is generated. Based on calculations, rate-limiting barriers in a range of ca. 15–20 kcal mol−1 are seen for a model process consisting in the esterification of acetaldehyde into ethyl acetate at 100 °C and 1 atm reaction conditions (in toluene solution). Our hypothesis is centred on the role of the Mn centre as the only active site involved in both elementary steps, namely hydride borrowing and C–O bond formation. During this C–O bond formation step, diastereoisomers (RN,R) and (RN,S) [or their enantiomeric pairs (SN,S) and (SN,R)] can be generated, with calculations showing a preference towards the (RN,R) pathway.

A calorimetric investigation on the reactions of TiCl4 with phthalates in 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane (TCE) is presented in order to better understand the complex interactions present in Ziegler-Natta catalytic systems. The Lewis bases diethyl isophthalate (L1), diethyl terephthalate (L2) and the ortho-isomer diethylphthalate (L3), have been chosen to study how the substituent positions could influence the energy and the stoichiometry of the complexation reactions.

A technique for implementing the integrated molecular orbital and molecular mechanics (IMOMM) methodology developed by Maseras and Morokuma that is used to perform combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) molecular dynamics simulations, frequency calculations and simulations of macromolecules including explicit solvent is presented. Although the IMOMM methodology is generalized to any coordinate system, the implementation first described by Maseras and Morokuma requires that the QM and MM gradients be transformed into internal coordinates before they are added together. This coordinate transformation can be cumbersome for macromolecular systems and can become ill-defined during the course of a molecular dynamics simulation. We describe an implementation of the IMOMM method in which the QM and MM gradients are combined in the cartesian coordinate system, thereby avoiding potential problems associated with using the internal coordinate system. The implementation can be used to perform combined QM/MM molecular dynamics simulations and frequency calculations within the IMOMM framework. Finally, we have examined the applicability of thermochemical data derived from IMOMM framework. Finally, we have examined the applicability of thermochemical data derived from IMOMM frequency calculations.

The present study pretends to assign the correct multiplicity state to dinuclear copper complexes when interacting with free molecular oxygen. Recently, the formation of a bridge butterfly μ–η2:η2-peroxo dicopper core structure stabilized by the direct interaction of the counterion, a carboxylate group that allows the double bridge linking both metal-centre atoms, was characterized by crystallography. This system was assigned as a diradical singlet with Ms = 0. However, after new calculations it has turned out to be triplet (Ms = 1) despite the stabilization for this latter multiplicity state is not high. Here, the factors that contribute to make this structure display a multiplicity different with respect to the previously expected diradical singlet are described. In the present theoretical study, the roles of the αSp ligand constraints and the counterion are unravelled. On the other hand, the relative stability between the butterfly μ–η2:η2-peroxo structure and the isomeric bis(μ-oxo) species is also on discussion. Despite the relative stabilities of all these either structural or electronic isomeric species are supposed to depend on the computational method, which is a difficulty to reach a definite conclusion about the nature of the active species, all DFT methods using either pure or not pure DFT functionals here reach the same conclusion, favoring the triplet as the ground state for the butterfly μ–η2:η2-peroxo dicopper core structure, and the bis(μ-oxo) species when removing the benzoate counterion.

Background The development of accurate protein-protein docking programs is making this kind of simulations an effective tool to predict the 3D structure and the surface of interaction between the molecular partners in macromolecular complexes. However, correctly scoring multiple docking solutions is still an open problem. As a consequence, the accurate and tedious screening of many docking models is usually required in the analysis step. Methods All the programs under CONS-COCOMAPS have been written in python, taking advantage of python libraries such as SciPy and Matplotlib. CONS-COCOMAPS is freely available as a web tool at the URL: http://www.molnac.unisa.it/BioTools/conscocomaps/. Results Here we presented CONS-COCOMAPS, a novel tool to easily measure and visualize the consensus in multiple docking solutions. CONS-COCOMAPS uses the conservation of inter-residue contacts as an estimate of the similarity between different docking solutions. To visualize the conservation, CONS-COCOMAPS uses intermolecular contact maps. Conclusions The application of CONS-COCOMAPS to test-cases taken from recent CAPRI rounds has shown that it is very efficient in highlighting even a very weak consensus that often is biologically meaningful.