Highly colored (red) solutions of various enol silyl ethers and tetranitromethane (TNM) are readily bleached to afford good yields of alpha-nitro ketones in the dark at room temperature or below. Spectral analysis show the red colors to be associated with the intermolecular 1:1 electron donor-acceptor (EDA) complexes between the enol silyl ether and TNM. The formation of similar vividly colored...

A simple synthetic approach to aromatic compounds using combinations of RCM, dehydration, oxidation, and tautomerization is described.

Unprecedented alkylation of silyl enol ethers has been developed by the use of ortho-alkynylbenzoic acid alkyl esters as alkylating agents in the presence of a gold catalyst. The reaction probably proceeds through the gold-induced in situ construction of leaving groups and subsequent nucleophilic attack on the silyl enol ethers. The generated leaving compound abstracts a proton to regenerate th...

Tautomerism in organic chemistry has been extensively studied in condensed phase by spectrometric methods, mainly by IR and NMR techniques. Mass spectrometry studies start 40 years ago but just recently it has been recognized the importance of the mass spectral data for the study of tautomerism in the gas phase. Mass spectrometry can provide valuable information in regard to tautomeric equilibr...

The experimental and computational results for the tautomerization reaction of 2-pyridone are reviewed. G3, G4, CBS-APNO, and W1 model chemistries are used to generate state-of-the-art reaction energetics for the tautomerization reaction with and without catalytic water molecules in both the gas and aqueous phases. Reactive, electronic potential energy surface surfaces for use in molecular dyna...

Background: Recent studies of melanin biosynthesis have uncovered an unusual enzymatic activity which converts the non-naturally occurring D-isomer of 2-carboxy-2, 3-dihydroindole5,6-quinone (dopachrome) into 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid (DHICA). The aim of the present investigation was to isolate and characterize the enzyme catalyzing this tautomerization reaction. Materials and Metho...

Studies of the non-enzymatic decarboxylation of /3-keto acids have shown that it is the keto form of the 8-keto acid which loses CO2 to form an enol of the product. This was demonstrated for dimethylacetoacetic acid by Pedersen (1) and for dimethyloxalacetic acid by Steinberger and Westheimer (2). These latter authors studied the catalytic effect of metal ions on the decarboxylation reaction an...

Kinetics of enol generation from propene has been predicted in an effort to understand the presence of enols in flames. A potential energy surface for reaction of OH with propene was computed by CCSD(T)/cc-pVDZ//B3LYP/cc-pVTZ calculations. Rate constants of different product channels and branching ratios were then calculated using the Master Equation formulation (J. Phys. Chem. A 2006, 110, 105...