Topics in Current Chemistry (Journal)

Since the original idea was explored by James in 1976, the use of chiral sulfoxides as ligands with transition metals in asymmetric catalysis has undergone a long period of development. There have been many studies into their properties, design and application in various kinds of asymmetric transformations. In this article, we document the literatures on chiral sulfoxide ligands in asymmetric catalytic reactions.

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A waste feedstock-derived economical basic alternative catalyst is described in this review. Eggshell is one of the household wastes created in tons of weight daily. Therefore, in order to reduce the environmental pollution-related problems, its use in heterogeneous catalysis can be attributed as a great contribution for the chemical and material science society to carry out several known reactions and for the much-needed energy alternative biodiesel production as low-cost catalytic system. Keeping green chemistry in mind, industrial use of these catalysts may also reduce the use of other traditionally used high-cost chemical catalytic systems...

The identification of active sites in electrocatalytic reactions is part of the elucidation of mechanisms of catalyzed reactions on solid surfaces. However, this is not an easy task, even for apparently simple reactions, as we sometimes think the oxidation of adsorbed CO is. For surfaces consisting of non-equivalent sites, the recognition of specific active sites must consider the influence that facets, as is the steps/defect on the surface of the catalyst, cause in its neighbors; one has to consider the electrochemical environment under which the "active sites" lie on the surface, meaning that defects/steps on the surface do not partake in chemistry by themselves...

The use of dispersive single-atom metals anchored on functionalized carbon nanomaterials as electrocatalysts for electrochemical energy conversion reactions represents a burgeoning area of research, due to their unique characteristics of low coordination number, uniform coordination environment, and maximum atomic utilization. Here we highlight the advanced synthetic methods, characterization techniques, and electrochemical applications for carbon-based single-atom metal catalysts, and provide illustrative correlations between molecular/electronic structures and specific catalytic activity for O2 reduction, water splitting, and other emerging reactions including CO2 reduction, H2 O2 production, and N2 reduction...

Carbon nanotube thin films have attracted considerable attention because of their potential use in flexible/stretchable electronics applications, such as flexible displays and wearable health monitoring devices. Due to recent progress in the post-purification processes of carbon nanotubes, high-purity semiconducting carbon nanotubes can be obtained for thin-film transistor applications. One of the key challenges for the practical use of carbon nanotube thin-film transistors is the thin-film formation technology, which is required for achieving not only high performance but also uniform device characteristics...

Molecular oxygen (O2 ) is the ultimate "green" oxidant for organic synthesis. There has been recent intensive research within the synthetic community to develop new selective liquid phase aerobic oxidation methodologies as a response to the necessity to reduce the environmental impact of chemical synthesis and manufacture. Green and sustainable chemical processes rely not only on effective chemistry but also on the implementation of reactor technologies that enhance reaction performance and overall safety...

In the current context of transitioning to more sustainable chemical processes, the upgrading of biobased platform molecules (i.e., the chemical transformation of widely available low molecular weight entities from biomass) is attracting significant attention, in particular when combined with enabling continuous flow conditions. The success of this combination is largely due to the ability to explore new process conditions and the perspective of facilitating seamless scalability while maintaining a small overall footprint...

Flow chemistry and heterogenous catalysis hold incredible potential from a sustainability point of view and from a green perspective. In fact, if heterogenous catalysts are required by the chemical industry for their efficiency, on the other hand, heterogenous flow catalysis would allow performing greener and more efficient chemistry at an industrial level. In the context of sustainable flow chemistry, in this chapter we report and discuss selected examples recently published in the specialized literature on the use of supported organic and organometallic catalysts for continuous flow synthesis...

In recent years, photochemistry has been a highly active research field. This renaissance is linked to the upsurge of photoredox catalysis, a versatile platform for synthetic methodologies using visible light photons as a traceless reagent. In contrast with UV, visible light constitutes almost half of the ground solar irradiance, making the use of solar light in chemistry a sustainable and viable possibility. However, the direct use of sunlight to power chemical reactions is still little explored. This can be explained by both the hurdles associated with solar radiation (e...

Polymerization is widely involved in the fabrication of high-performance materials. With its advantages, microreactors are typically applied to reaction processes which are limited by transport properties of conventional batch reactors. As demonstrated in this review, numerous polymerization processes are suitable to be conducted in microreactors with showing excellent polymerization performance (e.g., precisely controllable molecular weights and structures of polymer products). However, distinctive differences between polymerization processes and small-molecular reaction systems can be easily expected since fluid physical properties vary significantly during the polymerization...

In biological systems, the majority of chemistry occurs in enzymatic pathways. Pathways are essentially cascades of protein catalysts used for catabolism or metabolism. However, in cellular-free systems, catalytic cascades have been rarely studied until recently. This review will introduce the lessons that can be learned from in vivo enzymatic pathways and novel enzymatic pathways that have been developed for synthetic biology of electrochemical energy production and conversion. This review will also discuss the recent bio-inspired developments to utilize catalytic cascades for non-biological applications ranging from energy conversion to biosensing and the electrochemical production of important chemicals such as methanol from carbon dioxide and ammonia from agricultural waste runoff...

This paper provides an overview of recent advances in urea electro-oxidation. Urea sources are abundant from human urine, urea-containing wastewater, and industrial urea, thus becoming an attractive option as anodic fuel for the application in direct urea fuel cells (DUFCs). Besides, as a hydrogen-rich chemical fuel, urea can also be electrolyzed to produce hydrogen for energy storage in the near future. The exact mechanisms of urea decomposition are pretty different in alkaline or neutral mediums and are separately discussed in detail...

The increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has caused various environmental issues. Utilizing CO2 as the carbon feedstock to replace traditional fossil sources in commodity chemical production is a potential solution to reduce CO2 emissions. Electrochemical reduction of CO2 has attracted much attention because it not only converts CO2 into a variety of useful chemicals under mild reaction conditions, but also can be powered by renewable electricity at remote locations. From this review article, we summarize recent literature on the topic of bimetallic electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction...

Use of cyanoacetohydrazides as precursors in reactions leading to construction of heterocycles is reviewed. In addition to some common heterocyclic compounds, synthesis of other uncommon heterocycles such as thiadiazole, oxadiazole, fused heterocycles, and some seven- and eight-membered heterocycles such as benzodiazepine, oxazepine, and benzoxocine starting with cyanoacetohydrazides and their derivatives is also reported. The main aim of this review is to show the application of cyanoacetohydrazides in heterocyclic synthesis via different types of reaction, including cyclocondensation and cyclization...

Carbon-sulfur bond formation represents a key step in the synthesis of thioethers, which are a common structural motif in many pharmaceutically compounds. The direct cross-dehydrogenative coupling of C-H/S-H bonds has become a powerful tool for C-S bond formation. As these coupling reactions avoid pre-functionalization of the starting materials, they are more atom-economical, practical, and environmentally friendly than traditional cross-coupling reactions. In this review, we will highlight the most important developments in this novel and interesting research arena with the emphasis on the mechanistic aspects of the reactions...

Thiophenes occur as important building blocks in natural products, pharmaceutical active compounds, and in materials for electronic and opto-electronic devices. Therefore, there is a considerable demand for efficient synthetic strategies for producing these compounds. This review focuses on ring-forming multicomponent reactions for synthesizing thiophenes and their derivatives.

Molecular transistors, in which single molecules serve as active channel components in a three-terminal device geometry, constitute the building blocks of molecular scale electronic circuits. To demonstrate such devices, a gate electrode has been incorporated in several test beds of molecular electronics. The frontier orbitals' alignments of a molecular transistor can be delicately tuned by modifying the molecular orbital energy with the gate electrode. In this review, we described electrostatic gate control of solid-state molecular transistors...

Lignin valorization represents a crucial, yet underexploited component in current lignocellulosic biorefineries. An alluring opportunity is the selective depolymerization of lignin towards chemicals. Although challenged by lignin's recalcitrant nature, several successful (catalytic) strategies have emerged. This review provides an overview of different approaches to cope with detrimental lignin structural alterations at an early stage of the biorefinery process, thus enabling effective routes towards lignin-derived chemicals...

Multidimensional vibrational coherence spectroscopy has been part of laser spectroscopy since the 1990s and its role in several areas of science has continuously been increasing. In this contribution, after introducing the principals of vibrational coherence spectroscopy (VCS), we review the three most widespread experimental methods for multidimensional VCS (multi-VCS), namely femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy, pump-impulsive vibrational spectroscopy, and pump-degenerate four wave-mixing. Focus is given to the generation and typical analysis of the respective signals in the time and spectral domains...