A new reference material for UV-visible circular dichroism spectroscopy.

To obtain accurate and consistent measurements from circular dichroism (CD) instruments over time and from different laboratories, it is important that they are properly calibrated. The characteristics of the available reference materials are not ideal to ensure proper calibration as they typically only give peaks in one or two spectral regions, and often have issues concerning purity and stability. Currently either camphor sulfonic acid or ammonium camphor sulfonate are used. The latter can be an unstable, slightly hygroscopic secondary standard compound with only one characterized CD band. The former is the very hygroscopic primary standard for which only one enantiomer is readily available. We have synthesized a new reference material for CD, Na[Co(EDDS)].H(2)O (EDDS = N,N-ethylenediaminedisuccinic acid) which addresses these problems. It is extremely stable and available in both enantiomeric forms. The CD spectrum of Na[Co(EDDS)].H(2)O has nine distinct peaks between 180 and 599 nm. It thus fulfils the principal requirements for CD calibration chemical standards and has the potential to be used to ensure good practice in the measurement of CD data, providing two spectra of equal magnitude and opposite sign for a given concentration and path length. We have carried out an interlaboratory comparison using this material and show how it can be used to improve CD comparability between laboratories. A fitting algorithm has been developed to assess CD spectropolarimeter performance between 750 and 178 nm. This could be the basis of a formal quality control process once criteria for performance have been decided.

Chiral metal architectures in aminopyridinato complexes of zirconium.

Optically pure 2-alkylaminopyridines (HL) are synthesised readily from bromopyridines and chiral amines [(S)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-1-naphthylamine and (S)-(-)-alpha-methylbenzylamine] using palladium-catalysed amination. Protonolysis reactions of these proligands with ZrX(4)(X = NMe(2), CH(2)Ph, CH(2)Bu(t)) yield zirconium aminopyridinates, usually of the type [ML(2)X(2)], some of which have been characterised by X-ray crystallography. Control of absolute configuration at the metal centre is pursued by investigation of the effects of chiral amine substituent, substitution at the pyridine rings and the identity of co-ligands. Surprisingly the conformationally flexible [small alpha]-methylbenzyl based aminopyridinato ligands promote much better control of chirality-at-zirconium than do the cyclic tetrahydronaphthyl analogues. One complex of the former class displays complete control of stereochemistry at 193 K; only one diastereomer out of eight possible structures is observed. It is found that there is an excellent correlation between observed selectivities and calculated diastereomer energy differences from DFT. All the complexes studied are in dynamic exchange between diastereomers. The rate of these processes (DeltaH ca. 40 kJ mol(-1)) as studied by Selective Polarisation Transfer-Selective Inversion Recovery experiments (SPT-SIR) and lineshape analyses are significantly faster than those for aminopyridines containing bulkier amido substituents (DeltaH ca. 70 kJ mol(-1)). This type of dependence on steric effects, and the impact of the trans effect, is consistent with an N-dissociative mechanism, i.e. conversion from six- to five-coordinate structure followed by rapid intramolecular scrambling.

Arylaminopyridinato complexes of zirconium.

A range of 2-arylaminopyridines (HL) are synthesised readily from bromopyridines and amines using palladium-catalysed amination. Protonolysis reactions of these proligands with ZrX(4)(X = NMe(2), CH(2)Ph, CH(2)Bu(t)) yield zirconium complexes of the type [ML(n)X(4-n)], several of which have been characterised by X-ray crystallography. Control of metal/ligand stoichiometry and structure is pursued by investigation of the effects on substitution patterns of the pyridine and aryl rings. Some distinct patterns emerged; (i) the 6-methyl position on the pyridine appears to be particularly important with regards to control of stoichiometry, although there are co-ligand effects; (ii) structures of the metal alkyl derivatives [Zr(n)(CH(2)R)(4-n)] are dominated by aromatic pi-pi stacking, even when bulky arene substituents are employed at. This leads to the complexes adopting a C(2v)-symmetric core; (iii) the amides [Zr(2)(NMe(2))(2)] have structures for which aromatic pi-pi stacking is unfeasible, and correspondingly C(2)-symmetric or similar structures are adopted. All the structural data presented is consistent with a trans influence order at zirconium Me(2)N > RCH(2) > py.