Miho Hatanaka

The ONIOM Method and Its Applications

Lung Wa Chung,† W. M. C. Sameera,‡ Romain Ramozzi,‡ Alister J. Page, Miho Hatanaka,‡ Galina P. Petrova, Travis V. Harris,‡,⊥ Xin Li, Zhuofeng Ke, Fengyi Liu, Hai-Bei Li, Lina Ding, and Keiji Morokuma*,‡ †Department of Chemistry, South University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen 518055, China ‡Fukui Institute for Fundamental Chemistry, Kyoto University, 34-4 Takano Nishihiraki-cho, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8103, Japan Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan 2308, Australia Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sofia, Bulgaria Boulevard James Bourchier 1, 1164 Sofia, Bulgaria Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Oswego, Oswego, New York 13126, United States State Key Laboratory of Molecular Reaction Dynamics, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Science of Shaanxi Province, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710119, China School of Ocean, Shandong University, Weihai 264209, China School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, 100 Kexue Avenue, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China

Role of water in Mukaiyama-Aldol reaction catalyzed by lanthanide lewis acid: a computational study.

Carbon-carbon bond formations, such as Kobayashi modification of the Mukaiyama-Aldol reaction, catalyzed by lanthanide (Ln) Lewis acid in aqueous solution comprise one of the most attractive types of reactions in terms of green chemistry. However, their detailed mechanisms and the role of water molecules remained unclear. In order to explore complex potential energy surfaces for the water and substrate coordination around Eu(3+) as well as the detailed mechanism of the Mukaiyama-Aldol reaction between trimethylsilyl (TMS) cylcohexenolate and benzaldehyde (BA) catalyzed by Eu(3+), the recently developed anharmonic downward distortion following (ADDF) and artificial force-induced reaction (AFIR) methods were used with the B3LYP-D3 theory. The most favorable water coordination structures are Eu(3+)(H2O)8 and Eu(3+)(H2O)9; they are comparable in free energy and are likely to coexist, with an effective coordination number of 8.3. Eu(3+)(H2O)8(BA) is the best aldehyde coordinated structure. Starting with this complex, the Mukaiyama-Aldol reaction proceeds via a stepwise mechanism, first C-C bond formation between the substrates, followed by proton transfer from water to BA and then TMS dissociation caused by nucleophilic attack by bulk water molecules. Why did the yield of the Mukaiyama-Aldol reaction catalyzed by Ln(3+) in organic solvent dramatically increase upon addition of water? Without water, the reverse reaction (C-C cleavage) takes place easily. Why did this reaction show syn-preference in water? The anti transition state for C-C formation in water is entropically less favored relative to the syn transition state because of the existence of a rigid hydrogen bond between the TMS part and coordination water around Eu(3+) in the former.

Sampling of Transition States for Predicting Diastereoselectivity Using Automated Search Method—Aqueous Lanthanide-Catalyzed Mukaiyama Aldol Reaction

To predict the stereoselectivity of large and flexible reaction systems, structural sampling of many transition states (TSs) is required. We used an automated search method, the artificial force induced reaction (AFIR) method, for TS sampling and found 91 syn- and 73 anti-TSs for the diastereoselective C-C bond formation step of the aqueous lanthanide-catalyzed Mukaiyama aldol reaction. Among them 11 syn- and six anti-TSs are found to contribute significantly to the diastereomeric ratio at room temperature.

Exploring Potential Energy Surfaces of Large Systems with Artificial Force Induced Reaction Method in Combination with ONIOM and Microiteration.

Development of efficient methods for finding chemical reaction pathways has been one of the central subjects of theoretical chemistry. Recently, the artificial force induced reaction (AFIR) method enabled automated search for associative reaction pathways between multiple reactant molecules and has been applied to reactions involving a few tens of atoms. To expand its applicability to large systems, we combined it with the geometrical microiteration technique. With this extension, full optimization of transition state structures of enzymatic reactions in the protein became possible within the QM/MM framework. Performance of the microiteration-AFIR method was tested for a single water catalyzed Aldol reaction in (H2O)299 cluster and for an enzymatic reaction of the isopenicillin N synthase, where the potential energy surfaces were calculated by the ONIOM(QM/MM) method. These numerical tests demonstrated that the present method is promising in predicting reaction pathways that take place within an active site (consisting of tens of atoms) in a very large environment such as protein and solution.

The Mechanism of Iron(II)-Catalyzed Asymmetric Mukaiyama Aldol Reaction in Aqueous Media: Density Functional Theory and Artificial Force-Induced Reaction Study.

Density functional theory (DFT), combined with the artificial force-induced reaction (AFIR) method, is used to establish the mechanism of the aqueous Mukaiyama aldol reactions catalyzed by a chiral Fe(II) complex. On the bases of the calculations, we identified several thermodynamically stable six- or seven-coordinate complexes in the solution, where the high-spin quintet state is the ground state. Among them, the active intermediates for the selectivity-determining outer-sphere carbon-carbon bond formation are proposed. The multicomponent artificial force-induced reaction (MC-AFIR) method found key transition states for the carbon-carbon bond formation, and explained the enantioselectivity and diastereoselectivity. The overall mechanism consists of the coordination of the aldehyde, carbon-carbon bond formation, the rate-determining proton transfer from water to aldehyde, and dissociation of trimethylsilyl group. The calculated full catalytic cycle is consistent with the experiments. This study provides important mechanistic insights for the transition metal catalyzed Mukaiyama aldol reaction in aqueous media.

The Biginelli Reaction Is a Urea-Catalyzed Organocatalytic Multicomponent Reaction

The recently developed artificial force induced reaction (AFIR) method was applied to search systematically all possible multicomponent pathways for the Biginelli reaction mechanism. The most favorable pathway starts with the condensation of the urea and benzaldehyde, followed by the addition of ethyl acetoacetate. Remarkably, a second urea molecule catalyzes nearly every step of the reaction. Thus, the Biginelli reaction is a urea-catalyzed multicomponent reaction. The reaction mechanism was found to be identical in both protic and aprotic solvents.

Theoretical study on the f-f transition intensities of lanthanide trihalide systems

The photoabsorption intensities of intra-4f(N) transitions (f-f transitions) in lanthanide systems have been extensively studied with the semiempirical Judd-Ofelt theory. The oscillator strengths of most f-f transitions are insensitive to a change of surrounding environment because 4f electrons are shielded by closed-shell 5s and 5p electrons from outside. However, there are some exceptional transitions, so-called hypersensitive transitions, whose intensities are very sensitive to a change of surrounding environment, and the reason for this hypersensitivity has not been clarified. In this study, we calculated the oscillator strengths of lanthanide trihalides (LnX(3); Ln = Pr, Tm; X = Br, I) with the multireference spin-orbit configuration interaction method and obtained reasonably accurate values. To clarify the cause of hypersensitivity, we examined various possible effects on the oscillator strengths, such as molecular vibration, f-d mixing, ligand to metal charge transfer (LMCT), and intraligand excitation, and concluded that the effect of molecular vibration is very small and that the oscillator strengths of most f-f transitions including hypersensitive transitions arise from both the LMCT and dynamic-coupled intraligand excitations through their configuration mixings with the dominant configurations of 4f(N).

Exploring the Reaction Coordinates for f-f Emission and Quenching of Lanthanide Complexes - Thermosensitivity of Terbium(III) Luminescence.

Lanthanide complexes with temperature dependent f-f emission intensities are commonly used as temperature sensors. The thermosensitivity can be controlled by the ligands, but their effects are difficult to predict. To clarify the origin of the differences in thermosensitivity, we propose a new theoretical strategy, the energy shift method, and use it to find crossing points between two states where intersystem crossing and excitation energy transfer take place. The different sensitivities of the three studied terbium(III) complexes are caused by the different rate-determining steps for emission or quenching.

Cleavage of a P=P Double Bond Mediated by N-Heterocyclic Carbenes

The reaction of the bulky diphosphenes (Rind)P=P(Rind) (1; Rind=1,1,3,3,5,5,7,7-octa-R-substituted s-hydrindacen-4-yl) with two molecules of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC; 1,3,4,5-tetramethylimidazol-2-ylidene) resulted in the quantitative formation of the NHC-bound phosphinidenes NHC→P(Rind) (2), along with the cleavage of the P=P double bond. The reaction times are dependent on the steric size of the Rind groups (11 days for 2 a (R=Et) and 2 h for 2 b (R=Et, Me) at room temperature). The mechanism for the double bond-breaking is proposed to proceed via the formation of the NHC-coordinated, highly polarized diphospehenes 3 as an intermediate. Approach of a second NHC to 3 induces P-P bond cleavage and P-C bond formation, which proceeds through a transition state with a large negative Gibbs energy change to afford the two molecules of 2, thus being the rate-determining step of the overall reaction with the activation barriers of 80.4 for 2 a and 29.1 kJ mol-1 for 2 b.

σ-Aromaticity in hexa-group 16 atom-substituted benzene dications: a theoretical study.

C6I6(2+) has been reported to have a σ-aromatic character since removal of two σ anti-bonding electrons localized on iodines results in fulfilling Hückel (4n+2) rules for I6(2+) as well as C6 parts. To search for molecules possessing similar character, hexa-group 16 atom-substituted benzene dications C6(ChH)6(2+) (Ch = S, Se, Te) and their derivatives are examined for aromatic character by using nucleus-independent chemical shift (NICS). For these dications, in which iodines in C6I6(2+) are replaced by group 16 atoms, negative NICS values larger in magnitude than for benzene are found when a σ anti-bonding orbital localized on group 16 atoms is unoccupied. To clarify the origin of large negative NICS values, they are decomposed into individual molecular orbitals. It has been shown that both π bonding orbitals on C6 and σ bonding orbitals on Se6 or Te6 contribute to the negative NICS values, indicating that the aromaticity of these dications have a substantial σ character as well as π characters. Aromaticity of group 14 and 15 atom-substituted benzene dications is also discussed.