José A. Martinho Simões – författare

This book offers a broad discussion of the concepts required to understand the thermodynamic stability of molecules and bonds and a description of the most important condensed-phase techniques that have been used to obtain that information. Above all, this book attempts to provide useful guidelines on how to choose the best data and how to use it to understand chemistry. Although the book assumes some basic knowledge on physical-chemistry, it has been written in a textbook style and most topics are addressed in a way that is accessible to advanced undergraduate students. Many examples are given throughout the text, involving a variety of molecules. This text will provide a good starting point for those who wish to initiate in the field or simply to understand how to assess, to estimate, and to use thermochemical data. It will therefore appeal to a broad range of practicing chemists and particularly to those interested in energetics-structure-reactivity relationships.

The current volume consists of eight chapters which interweave various aspects of the structure, energetics and reactivity of organic free radicals, all combining pedagogical insights with current research. The first is by Walling in which a personalized overview is given by one of the modern pioneers of the discipline. In the next two chapters, Tsang, and Traeger and Kompe, present key thermochemical and kinetic quantities from the complementary vantage points of the studies of neutral and cationic species. The fourth chapter by Francisco and Montgomery discusses the armamentarium of modern theory as applied to species with unpaired electrons, while the next chapter by Goodman presents the theory, methodology and results from photoacoustic calorimetry, a novel and powerful experimental technique. Martinho Simoes and Minas da Piedade interrelate organometallic and free radical chemistry, while Greenberg and Liebman consider resonance energy and rearrangements as applied to small molecules and enzyme cofactors alike. The volume ends with the chapter by Tanko and Suleman, which describes the surprising and diverse solvent effects which modulate free radical chem- istry.This volume will make it apparent to entry-level graduate students and senior researchers alike that much is known and much remains to be done in both the qualitative understanding and quantitative insights of the chemistry of organic free radicals. Jose Artur Martinho Simoes Arthur Greenberg Joel F. Liebman vii Editorial Advisory Board WESTON T. BORDEN ALAN P.

An overview of modern organometallic thermochemistry, made by some of the most active scientists in the area, is offered in this book. The contents correspond to the seventeen lectures delivered at the NATO ASI Energetics of Organometallic Species (Curia, Portugal, September 1991), plus three other invited contributions from participants of that summer school. These papers reflect a variety of research interests, and discuss results obtained with several techniques. It is therefore considered appropriate to add a few preliminary words, attempting to bring some unity out of that diversity. In the first three chapters, results obtained by classical calorimetric methods are described. Modern organometallic thermochemistry started in Manchester, with Henry Skinner, and his pioneering work is briefly surveyed in the first chapter. The historical perspective is followed by a discussion of a very actual issue: the trends of stepwise bond dissociation enthalpies. Geoff Pilcher, another Manchester thermochemist, makes, in chapter 2, a comprehensive and authoritative survey of problems found in the most classical of thermochemical techniques - combustion calorimetr- applied to organometallic compounds. Finally, results from another classical technique, reaction-solution calorimetry, are reviewed in the third chapter, by Tobin Marks and coworkers. More than anybody else, Tobin Marks has used thermochemical values to define synthetic strategies for organometallic compounds, thus indicating an application of thermochemical data of which too little use has been made so far.