On the Origin and Structure of the Recently Observed Acetal in the Soai Reaction

Recent observation of the acetal species in the course of autoamplifying Soai reaction was analysed by the formal kinetic analysis of the experimental data and DFT computations. Kinetic analysis demonstrated convincingly that the observed species cannot be a precursor of the reaction product. Hence, it is an off-loop species that is not important for the process of the chirality amplification. DFT search for a kinetically stable acetal species resulted in the location of a Zn3 cluster stabilized with three Zn–O–Zn bridges.