A metastable brominated nanodiamond surface enables room temperature and catalysis-free amine chemistry

Bromination of high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) nanodiamond (ND) surfaces has not been explored and can open new avenues for increased chemical reactivity and diamond lattice covalent bond formation. The large bond dissociation energy of the diamond lattice-oxygen bond is a challenge that prevents new bonds from forming and most researchers simply use oxygen-terminated ND (alcohols and acids) as a reactive species. In this work, we transformed a tertiary alcohol-rich ND surface to an amine surface with 50% surface coverage and was limited by the initial rate of bromination. We observed that alkyl-bromide moieties are highly labile on NDs and are metastable as previously found using density functional theory. The instability of the bromine terminated ND is explained by steric hindrance and poor surface energy stabilization. The strong leaving group properties of the alkyl-bromide intermediate were found to form diamond-nitrogen bonds at room temperature and without catalysts. The chemical lability of the brominated ND surface led to efficient amination with NH3•THF at 298 K, and a catalyst-free Sonogashira-type reaction with an alkyne-amine produced an 11-fold increase in amination rate. Overlapping spectroscopies under inert, temperature-dependent and open-air conditions provided unambiguous chemical assignments. Amine-terminated NDs and folic acid were conjugated using sulfo-NHS/EDC coupling reagents to form amide bonds, confirming that standard amine chemistry remains viable. This work supports that a robust pathway exists to activate a chemically inert diamond surface at room temperature, which broadens the pathways of bond formation when a reactive alkyl-bromide surface is prepared. The unique surface properties of brominated and aminated nanodiamond reported here are impactful to researchers who wish to chemically tune diamond for quantum sensing applications or as an electron source for chemical transformations.

Experimental verification of the field theory of specific heat with the scaling in crystalline matter

The field (geometrical) theory of specific heat is based on the universal thermal sum, a new mathematical tool derived from the evolution equation in the Euclidean four-dimensional spacetime, with the closed time coordinate. This theory made it possible to explain the phenomena of scaling in the heat capacity of condensed matter. The scaling of specific heat of the carbon group elements with a diamond lattice is revisited. The predictions of the scaling characteristics for natural diamond and grey tin are verified with published experimental data. The fourth power in temperature in the quasi-low temperature behaviour of the specific heat of both materials is confirmed. The phenomenon of scaling in the specific heat, previously known only in glassy matter, is demonstrated for some zincblend lattice compounds and diamond lattice elements, with their characteristic temperatures. The nearly identical elastic properties of grey tin and indium antimonide is the cause for similarity of their thermal properties, which makes it possible to make conjectures about thermal properties of grey tin.

Characterization of (Molecular) Graphs with Fractional Metric Dimension as Unity

Distance-based dimensions provide the foreground for the identification of chemical compounds that are chemically and structurally different but show similarity in different reactions. The reason behind this similarity is the occurrence of a set S of atoms and their same relative distances to some ordered set T of atoms in both compounds. In this article, the aforementioned problem is considered as a test case for characterising the (molecular) graphs bearing the fractional metric dimension (FMD) as 1. For the illustration of the theoretical development, it is shown that the FMD of path graph is unity. Moreover, we evaluated the extremal values of fractional metric dimension of a tetrahedral diamond lattice.

Experimental Verification of the Field Theory of Specific Heat With the Scaling in Crystalline Matter

The field (geometrical) theory of specific heat is based on the universal thermal sum, a new mathematical tool derived from the evolution equation in the Euclidean four-dimensional spacetime, with the closed time coordinate. This theory made it possible to explain the phenomena of scaling in the heat capacity of condensed matter. The scaling of specific heat of the carbon group elements with a diamond lattice is revisited. The predictions of the scaling characteristics for natural diamond and grey tin are verified with published experimental data. The fourth power in temperature in the quasi-low temperature behaviour of the specific heat of both materials is confirmed. The phenomenon of scaling in the specific heat, previously known only in glassy matter, is demonstrated for some zincblend lattice compounds and diamond lattice elements, with their characteristic temperatures. The nearly identical elastic properties of grey tin and indium antimonide is the cause for similarity of their thermal properties, which makes it possible to make conjectures about thermal properties of grey tin.

A Kind of Filling Lattice Structure Based on DFAM for Mechanical Parts: The Diamond Lattice Structure

Thanks to the geometric and material complexity of additive manufacturing, the design space of mechanical parts has been developed, in which lattice filling structure customization can be applied to the solid filling of mechanical parts to achieve the goal of mechanical structure lightweight. A kind of diamond lattice structure unit is designed by imitating the natural method based on Design for Additive Manufacturing of mechanical parts. The mathematical model of the relative density and mechanical properties of the unit are established, and the relationship between the two is obtained, which is verified by simulations; then the relatively uniform results are obtained. The variable density hypothesis of diamond lattice structure is proposed, the methods of simulations and compression tests are used to verify the hypothesis, and the results show that the variable density structure with the density of the filling element decreasing gradually with the stress point as the center has better compression performance and concurrently verify the correctness and applicability of the equivalent modulus of elasticity mathematical model. The results of this study can be applied to the solid sandwich filling of pressure mechanical parts, and the stress density matching relationship can be carried out to further specific design.