Intrinsically Chiral Research Articles

Synthesis and Characterization of Tetrahedral Ru3O Clusters with Intrinsic Framework Chirality: A Chiral Probe of the Intact Cluster Catalysis Concept

To bring evidence for or against the hypothesis of catalytic hydrogenation by intact trinuclear arene ruthenium clusters containing an oxo cap, cationic Ru3O clusters with three different arene ligands (intrinsically chiral tetrahedra) have been synthesized as racemic mixtures. By introduction of a chiral auxiliary substituent at one of the three different arene ligands, the separation of the two diastereomers was possible. The chiral Ru3O framework was evidenced by X-ray crystallography, by circular dichroism in the UV and IR regions, and by chiral shift reagents in the NMR spectra. The catalytic hydrogenation of the prochiral substrate methyl 2-acetamidoacrylate using a chiral Ru3O cluster showed no asymmetric induction, suggesting that the catalytically active species is not the intact Ru3O cluster.

Intrinsic Chirality of Triple‐Layered Naphthalenophane and Related Graphs

We prove that the graph of triple‐layered naphthalenophane and an infinite class of related graphs are all intrinsically chiral. We also give examples to illustrate that not all graphs which are contractible to a Mobius ladder with three rungs are necessarily intrinsically chiral.

Intrinsic Chirality of 3-Connected Graphs

We characterize which 3-connected graphs are intrinsically chiral in terms of whether or not a certain type of graph automorphism exists.

Intrinsic chirality

We present some examples of classes of graphs which are intrinsically chiral and we explain our characterization of intrinsic chirality for 3-connected graphs.

Intrinsic chirality of complete graphs

A graph is said to be intrinsically chiral if no embedding of the graph in 3 3 -space is respected by any ambient orientation-reversing homeomorphism. In this note, we characterize those complete graphs that are intrinsically chiral.