Search

We computationally study the chiral transition process of the α-Ala molecule under confined different sizes of armchair SWBNNTs to explore the confinement effect. We find that the influence of a confinement environment (in armchair SWBNNTs) on the α-Ala molecule would lead to different reaction pathways. Meanwhile, the preferred reaction pathway is also different in various sizes of armchair SWBNNTs, and their energy barriers for the rate-limiting step decrease rapidly with the decreasing of the diameters of the nanotubes. It is obvious that significant decrease of the chiral transition energy barrier occurs compared with the isolated α-Ala molecule chirality conversion mechanism, by ∼15.6 kcal mol-1, highlighting the improvement in the activity the enantiomers of α-Ala molecule. We concluded that the confinement environment has a significant impact at the nanoscale on the enantiomer transformation process of the chiral molecule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydroxyacetone (CH3C(O)CH2OH) is observed as a stable end product from reactions of the (CH3)2COO Criegee intermediate, acetone oxide, in a flow tube coupled with multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometer detection. In the experiment, the isomers at m/z = 74 are distinguished by their different photoionization spectra and reaction times. Hydroxyacetone is observed as a persistent signal at longer reaction times at a higher photoionization threshold of ca. 9.7 eV than Criegee intermediate and definitively identified by comparison with the known photoionization spectrum. Complementary electronic structure calculations reveal multiple possible reaction pathways for hydroxyacetone formation, including unimolecular isomerization via hydrogen atom transfer and -OH group migration as well as self-reaction of Criegee intermediates. Varying the concentration of Criegee intermediates suggests contributions from both unimolecular and self-reaction pathways to hydroxyacetone. The hydroxyacetone end product can provide an effective, stable marker for the production of transient Criegee intermediates in future studies of alkene ozonolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]