Spin–orbit coupling in biradicals. 5. Zero-field splitting in triplet dimethylnitrenium, dimethylphosphenium and dimethylarsenium cations

Chiral π-Conjugated Double Helical Aminyl Diradical with the Triplet Ground State

We report a neutral high-spin diradical of chiral C2-symmetric bis[5]diazahelicene with ΔEST ≈ 0.4 kcal mol-1, as determined by EPR spectroscopy/SQUID magnetometry. The diradical is the most persistent among all high-spin aminyl radicals reported to date by a factor of 20, with a half-life of up to 6 days in 2-MeTHF at room temperature. Its triplet ground state and excellent persistence may be associated with the unique spin density distribution within the dihydrophenazine moiety, which characterizes two effective 3-electron C-N bonds analogous to the N-O bond of a nitroxide radical. The enantiomerically enriched (ee ≥ 94%) (MM)- and (PP)-enantiomers of the precursors to the diradicals are obtained by either preparative chiral supercritical fluid chromatography or resolution via functionalization with the chiral auxiliary of the C2-symmetric racemic tetraamine. The barrier for the racemization of the solid tetraamine is ΔG‡ = 43 ± 0.01 kcal mol-1 in the 483-523 K range. The experimentally estimated lower limit of the barrier for the racemization of a diradical, ΔG‡ ≥ 26 kcal mol-1 in 2-MeTHF at 293 K, is comparable to the DFT-determined barrier of ΔG‡ = 31 kcal mol-1 in the gas phase at 298 K. While the enantiomerically pure tetraamine displays strong chiroptical properties, with anisotropy factor |g| = |Δε|/ε = 0.036 at 376 nm, |g| ≈ 0.005 at 548 nm of the high-spin diradical is comparable to that recently reported triplet ground-state diradical dication. Notably, the radical anion intermediate in the generation of diradical exhibits a large SOMO-HOMO inversion, SHI = 35 kcal mol-1.

Methide Affinity Scale: Key Thermodynamic Data Underpinning Catalysis, Organic Synthesis, and Organometallic and Polymer Chemistry

Methide transfer reactions play important roles in many areas of chemistry, including the Grignard reaction, in the transmetalation steps of metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions, and in the generation of cationic metal polymerization catalysts. Methide affinities (MAs) are the key thermodynamic quantity that underpin such reactions, and yet comprehensive methide affinity scales are poorly developed. Here, B3LYP-D3BJ/def2-TZVP calculations are used to calculate the energy changes (MAs) for cations (MeZ → Z+ + Me-), neutrals (MeY- → Y + Me-), and anions (MeX2- → X- + Me-) derived from permethyl species of all group s and p elements. The MAs range from 2525.8 for the singlet cation F+ to -820.4 kJ/mol for the tetramethylborate anion, Me4B-. The cations show the clearest trends: the MAs in all cases decrease going down the group, while moving across a period, the MAs increase from group 1 to group 2 and then decrease for group 3, remaining about the same or with a modest increase moving to group 4, and then continue to increase across a period to a maximum for the halogens (group 17). The anions and dianions are sensitive to hypervalency; those elements that cannot expand the octet have very unfavorable MAs (e.g., MA of Me4C requires the formation of Me5C- and of Me4B- requires the formation of Me5B2-). To address whether the anion MeY- and dianion MeZ2- are stable, the vertical detachment energies of the anions and dianions were calculated. All of the anions are thermodynamically stable with respect to electron loss, except for Me4N-, while the dianions are all thermodynamically unstable with respect to electron loss. The kinetic stability of the dianions with respect to methide and electron loss was also evaluated for the lowest MAs. The only dianions that might be kinetically stable and observable in the gas phase are Me4Ca2-, Me4Sr2-, and Me4Ba2-. The dianion CF3CaF32- is predicted to be both thermodynamically and kinetically stable in the gas phase.

An ab initio MO study of heavy atom effects on the zero-field splitting tensors of high-spin nitrenes: how the spin–orbit contributions are affected

The CASSCF and hybrid CASSCF–MRMP2 methods reproduce the ZFS tensors of spin-septet 2,4,6-trinitrenopyridines, focusing on the heavy atom effects on the spin–orbit terms of the tensors.

Spin−Spin Contributions to the Zero-Field Splitting Tensor in Organic Triplets, Carbenes and BiradicalsA Density Functional and Ab Initio Study

An evaluation study for the direct dipolar electron spin-spin (SS) contribution to the zero-field splitting (ZFS) tensor in electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is presented. Calculations were performed on a wide variety of organic systems where the SS contribution to the ZFS dominates over the second-order spin-orbit coupling (SOC) contribution. Calculations were performed using (hybrid) density functional theory (DFT), as well as complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) wave functions. In the former case, our implementation is an approximation, because we use the two-particle reduced spin-density matrix of the noninteracting reference system. In the latter case, the SS contribution is approximated by a mean-field method which, nevertheless, gives accurate results, compared to the approximation free computation of the SS part in a CASSCF framework. For the case of the triplet dioxygen molecule, it was shown that restricted open-shell density functional theory (RODFT), as well as CASSCF, can provide accurate spin-spin couplings while spin-unrestricted DFT leads to much larger errors. Furthermore, 15 organic radicals, including several 1,3 and 1,5 diradicals, dinitroxide biradicals, and even a chlorophyll a model system, were examined as test cases to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our approach within a DFT framework. Accurate D values with root-mean-square deviations of 0.0035 cm(-1) were obtained. Furthermore, all trends, including those due to substituent effects, were correctly reproduced. In a different set of calculations, the polyacenes benzene, naphthalene, anthracene, and tetracene were studied. Applying DFT, the absolute D values were noticeably underestimated, but it was possible to correctly reproduce the trend to smaller D values with larger size of the systems. Finally, it was demonstrated that our approach is also well-suited for the study of carbenes. The smaller organic radicals of this work were also studied, through the use of CASSCF wave functions. This was a special advantage in the case of the triplet polyacenes, where the CASSCF approach gave better results than the DFT method. In comparing spin-restricted and spin-unrestricted results, it was shown through a natural orbital analysis and comparison to high-level ab initio calculations that even small amounts of spin polarization introduced by the unrestricted calculations lead to large deviations between the unrestricted Kohn-Sham (UKS) and restricted open-shell Kohn-Sham (ROKS) approaches. It is challenging to understand why the ROKS results show much better correlation with the experimental data.