Relativistic DFT Calculations of Copper Hyperfine Coupling Constants: Effect of Spin−Orbit Coupling

Comparison of Density Functional and Correlated Wave Function Methods for the Prediction of Cu(II) Hyperfine Coupling Constants

The reliable prediction of Cu(II) hyperfine coupling constants remains a challenge for quantum chemistry. Until recently only density functional theory (DFT) could target this property for systems of realistic size. However, wave function based methods become increasingly applicable. In the present work, we define a large set of Cu(II) complexes with experimentally known hyperfine coupling constants and use it to investigate the performance of modern quantum chemical methods for the prediction of this challenging spectroscopic parameter. DFT methods are evaluated against orbital‐optimized second‐order Møller‐Plesset (OO‐MP2) theory and coupled cluster calculations including singles and doubles excitations, driven by the domain‐based local pair natural orbital approach (DLPNO‐CCSD). Special attention is paid to the definition of a basis set that converges adequately toward the basis set limit for the given property for all methods considered in this study, and a specifically optimized basis set is proposed for this purpose. The results suggest that wave function based methods can supplant but do not outcompete DFT for the calculation of Cu(II) hyperfine coupling constants. Mainstream hybrid functionals such as B3PW91 remain on average the best choice.

Correlation between the C-C Cross-Coupling Activity and C-to-Ni Charge Transfer Transition of High-Valent Ni Complexes

High-valent Ni complexes have proven to be good platforms for diverse cross-coupling reactions that are otherwise difficult to be achieved with conventional low-valent catalysts. However, their reductive elimination (RE) activities are still significantly variable by up to 5 orders of magnitude, depending on the supporting ligand and oxidation state of the Ni center. To elucidate frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) that determine the RE activity of the Ni center, the electronic structures of cycloneophyl (CH₂C(CH₃)₂-o-C₆H₄) Ni^III and Ni^IV complexes have been characterized by utilizing various transition metal-based spectroscopic techniques such as electronic absorption, magnetic circular dichroism, electron paramagnetic resonance, resonance Raman, and X-ray absorption spectroscopies. In combination with density functional theory computations, the spectroscopic analyses have shown that the energies of the C-to-Ni charge-transfer (CT) electronic transitions are strongly correlated to the rates of C-C bond-forming RE reaction. This correlation suggests that the kinetic barrier of the RE reaction is determined by energy cost for internal CT (ICT) from the coordinated carbon moiety to the Ni center, and that FMOs involved in the RE reaction and the C-to-Ni CT electronic transitions are essentially identical. This FMO determination has led us to discover that photoexcitation to the C-to-Ni CT excited states accelerates the C-C cross-coupling reaction by up to 10⁵ times, as the CT electronic transition can substitute for the rate-determining ICT step of the RE reaction at the ground electronic state.

Analyses of sizable ZFS and magnetic tensors of high spin metallocomplexes

The fictitious spin-1/2 Hamiltonian approach is the putative method to analyze the fine-structure/hyperfine ESR spectra of high spin metallocomplexes having sizable zerofield splitting (ZFS), thus giving salient principal g-values far from around g = 2 without explicitly providing their ZFS parameters in most cases. Indeed, the significant departure of the g-values from g = 2 is indicative of the occurrence of their high spin states, but naturally they never agree with true g-values acquired by quantum chemical calculations such as sophisticated DFT or ab initio MO calculations. In this work, we propose facile approaches to determine the magnetic tensors of high spin metallocomplexes having sizable ZFS, instead of performing advanced high-field/high-frequency ESR spectroscopy. We have revisited analytical expressions for the relationship between effective g-values and true principal g-values for high spins. The useful analytical formulas for the g^eff-g^true relationships are given for S's up to 7/2. The genuine Zeeman perturbation formalism gives the exact solutions for S = 3/2, and for higher S's it is much more accurate than the pseudo-Zeeman perturbation approach documented so far (A. Abragam and B. Bleaney, Electron Paramagnetic Resonance of Transition Metal Ions, 1970; J. R. Pilbrow, J. Magn. Reson., 1978, 31, 479; F. Trandafir et al., Appl. Magn. Reson., 2007, 31, 553; M. Fittipaldi et al., J. Phys. Chem. B, 2008, 112, 3859), in which the E(S_x² - S_y²) term is putatively treated to the second order. To show the usefulness of the present approach, we exploit Fe^III(Cl)OEP (S = 5/2) (OEP: 2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octaethylporphyrin) and Co^IIOEP (S = 3/2) well magnetically diluted in the diamagnetic host crystal lattice of Ni^IIOEP. The advantage of single-crystal ESR spectroscopy lies in the fact that the molecular information on the principal axes of the magnetic tensors is crucial in comparing with reliable theoretical results. In high spin states of metallocomplexes with sizable ZFS in pseudo-octahedral symmetry, their fine-structure ESR transitions for the principal z-axis orientation appear in the lower field far from g = 2 at the X-band, disagreeing with the putative intuitive picture obtained using relevant ESR spectroscopy. A Re^III,IV dinuclear complex in a mixed valence state exemplifies the cases, whose fine-structure/hyperfine ESR spectra of the neat crystals have been analyzed in their principal-axis system. The DFT-based/ab initio MO calculations of the magnetic tensors for all the high spin entities in this work were carried out.

Amino acid derived CuII compounds as catalysts for asymmetric oxidative coupling of 2-naphthol

Several chiral amino acid-derived Cu^II complexes were prepared and used as catalysts in the aerobic oxidative coupling of 2-naphthol. Moderate homocoupling product yields and enantiomeric excesses were obtained under mild, aqueous conditions.

Copper binding sites in the C-terminal domain of mouse prion protein: A hybrid (QM/MM) molecular dynamics study

We present a hybrid QM/MM Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics study of the copper-loaded C-terminal domain of the mouse prion protein. By means of a statistical analysis of copper coordination in known protein structures, we localized the protein regions with the highest propensity for copper ion binding. The identified candidate structures were subsequently refined via QM/MM simulations. Their EPR characteristics were computed to make contact with the experimental data and to probe the sensitivity to structural and chemical changes. Overall best agreement with the experimental EPR data (Van Doorslaer et al., J Phys Chem B 2001; 105: 1631-1639) and the information currently available in the literature is observed for a binding site involving H187. Moreover, a reinterpretation of the experimental proton hyperfine couplings was possible in the light of the present computational findings.