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Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Preparation of Stable Bicyclic Aziridinium Ions and Their Ring-Opening for the Synthesis of Azaheterocycles
Published on: August 22, 2018
Adenine formation without HCN
Kenneth M Merz1, Eduardo C Aguiar, Joao Bosco P da Silva
1Quantum Theory Project, University of Florida , 2234 New Physics Building, Gainesville, 32611 Florida, United States.
Abstract:
From a historic point of view adenine was always presumed to be the product of HCN pentamerization. In this work a new mechanism for adenine synthesis in the gas phase without HCN is proposed. The concept of retrosynthetic analysis was employed to create a tautomer of adenine, which can be reached from previously observed interstellar molecules C3NH and HNCNH and its isomer H2NCN. MP2/6-311++G(2d,2p) calculations were performed to calculate the Gibbs free energy of the minimum and the transition state (TS) structures involved in the six step mechanism. This new mechanism requires a smaller number of steps, the reaction energy is twice as exergonic, and the rate determining TS is lower in energy than the corresponding ones proposed elsewhere in the literature.
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