There is a fascinating (and useful) essay A Bond by Any Other Name by Gautam R. Desiraju in Angewandte Chemie International. It discusses the background behind the recent new definition of a hydrogen bond by IUPAC [International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry]. [A detailed report is here]. Here is the new definition:
The hydrogen bond is an attractive interaction between a hydrogen atom from a molecule or a molecular fragment XH in which X is more electronegative than H, and an atom or a group of atoms in the same or a different molecule, in which there is evidence of bond formation.
A typical hydrogen bond may be depicted as XH⋅⋅⋅YZ, where the three dots denote the bond. XH represents the hydrogen-bond donor. The acceptor may be an atom or an anion Y, or a fragment or a molecule YZ, where Y is bonded to Z. In specific cases X and Y can be the same with both XH and YH bonds being equal. In any event, the acceptor is an electron-rich region such as, but not limited to, a lone pair in Y or a π-bonded pair in YZ.
Amusingly, one section of the paper is entitled, "The Name is Bond".
More seriously, the paper has a useful section 5.1 List of Criterial useful as evidence (for hydrogen bonding).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Emergence and protein folding
Proteins are a distinct state of matter. Globular proteins are tightly packed with a density comparable to a crystal but without the spatia...
-
Is it something to do with breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation? In molecular spectroscopy you occasionally hear this term thro...
-
If you look on the arXiv and in Nature journals there is a continuing stream of people claiming to observe superconductivity in some new mat...
-
I welcome discussion on this point. I don't think it is as sensitive or as important a topic as the author order on papers. With rega...
No comments:
Post a Comment