Luo Stella M, Barber Ross W, Overholts Anna C, Robb Maxwell J
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, United States.
ACS Polym Au. 2022 Nov 21;3(2):202-208. doi: 10.1021/acspolymersau.2c00047. eCollection 2023 Apr 12.
During the past two decades, our understanding of mechanochemical reactivity has advanced considerably. Nevertheless, an incomplete knowledge of structure-activity relationships and the principles that govern mechanochemical transformations limits molecular design. The experimental development of mechanophores has thus benefited from simple computational tools like CoGEF, from which quantitative metrics like rupture force can be extracted to estimate reactivity. Furan-maleimide (FM) and anthracene-maleimide (AM) Diels-Alder adducts are widely studied mechanophores that undergo retro-Diels-Alder reactions upon mechanical activation in polymers. Despite possessing significantly different thermal stability, similar rupture forces predicted by CoGEF calculations suggest that these compounds exhibit similar mechanochemical reactivity. Here, we directly probe the relative mechanochemical reactivity of FM and AM adducts through competitive activation experiments. Ultrasound-induced mechanochemical activation of bis-adduct mechanophores comprising covalently tethered FM and AM subunits reveals pronounced selectivity-as high as ∼13:1-for reaction of the FM adduct compared to the AM adduct. Computational models provide insight into the greater reactivity of the FM mechanophore, indicating a more efficient mechanochemical coupling for the FM adduct compared to the AM adduct. The methodology employed here to directly interrogate the relative reactivity of two different mechanophores using a tethered bis-adduct configuration may be useful for other systems where more common sonication-based approaches are limited by poor sensitivity.
在过去二十年中,我们对机械化学反应性的理解有了显著进展。然而,对结构-活性关系以及控制机械化学转化的原理的认识尚不完整,这限制了分子设计。因此,机械基团的实验开发受益于诸如CoGEF之类的简单计算工具,从中可以提取诸如断裂力等定量指标来估计反应性。呋喃-马来酰亚胺(FM)和蒽-马来酰亚胺(AM)狄尔斯-阿尔德加合物是广泛研究的机械基团,它们在聚合物中受到机械活化时会发生逆狄尔斯-阿尔德反应。尽管热稳定性存在显著差异,但CoGEF计算预测的相似断裂力表明这些化合物表现出相似的机械化学反应性。在这里,我们通过竞争性活化实验直接探究FM和AM加合物的相对机械化学反应性。超声诱导的包含共价连接的FM和AM亚基的双加合物机械基团的机械化学活化显示出与AM加合物相比,FM加合物反应具有高达约13:1的显著选择性。计算模型深入了解了FM机械基团更高的反应性,表明与AM加合物相比,FM加合物的机械化学偶联更有效。这里采用的使用连接双加合物构型直接探究两种不同机械基团相对反应性的方法,对于其他基于超声处理的更常见方法因灵敏度差而受限的系统可能有用。