Turning carbon dioxide into something useful -Carbon dioxide reduced to formate by iridium pincer catalyst

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/07/iridium-catalyst-carbon-dioxide-reduction-formate

New research shows that a water-soluble catalyst developed by scientists in the US can electrocatalytically transform carbon dioxide into a useful chemical feedstock.
The global demand for fuel is rising, as are carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Recent studies have attempted to address the global carbon imbalance by exploring ways to recycle carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. Formate, the anion of formic acid, is an intermediate of carbon dioxide reduction and can be used as a fuel in formic acid fuel cells. However, the selective production of formate, without using organic solvents, is challenging. Water, being inexpensive and environmentally-friendly, is obviously preferred over organic solvents as a reaction medium. On the other hand, the reduction of carbon dioxide in water is complicated by the reduction of water to hydrogen being a more kinetically favourable process.
 http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/07/iridium-catalyst-carbon-dioxide-reduction-formate

Chiral Column? Here’s One I (Vikki Cantrill) Made Earlier

Continuous-flow Diels–Alder reactions with a homemade HPLC column give good selectivity for >150 h
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http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/news/4972561/Chiral_Column_Heres_One_I_Made_Earlier.html


Continuous-Flow Stereoselective Organocatalyzed Diels–Alder Reactions in a Chiral Catalytic "Homemade" HPLC Column
Valerio Chiroli, Maurizio Benaglia, Franco Cozzi, Alessandra Puglisi, Rita Annunziata, Giuseppe Celentano
Org. Letters 2013.
DOI: 10.1021/ol401390z

Catalyst duo exerts powerful stereocontrol

The dual catalyst enables selective access to the required stereoisomer © Science/AAAS

Chemists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, have teamed chiral catalysts in pairs to selectively drive a reaction towards desired stereoisomeric products with high selectivity. Each catalyst activates one reagent and controls its substituent arrangement as it bonds to the other to form two neighbouring chiral centres. ‘We have shown that it is possible to develop fully stereodivergent reaction processes,’ says Erick Carreira, who led the work. ‘We expect that additional reactions displaying full stereodivergency will be identified.’

read all at
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/05/catalyst-duo-powerful-stereocontrol-diastereomer

References

S Krautwald et al, Science, 2013, DOI: 10.1126/science.1237068

carboxylic acids

Organic Chemistry Chapter 21 Klein from Sarah Greening

A molecular database for developing organic solar cells

A molecular database for developing organic solar cell

Harvard researchers have released a massive database of more than 2 million molecules that might be useful in the construction of solar cells that rely on organic compounds for construction of organic solar cells for the production of renewable energy. Developed as part of the Materials Genome Initiative launched by the White House’s Office of … more…

http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-molecular-database-for-developing-organic-solar-cells?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4fc1bf53a4-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-4fc1bf53a4-282116853

Lab Reproduction of Marine Compound with Antibiotic Properties

 

Baringolin is a marine product with antibiotic properties. Image: IRB Barcelona
 

Barcelona, Spain (Scicasts) – Bacterial resistance to drugs leads pharmaceutical labs to be in constant search for new antibiotics to treat the same diseases. For the last thirty years, the sea bottom has yielded a wealth of substances with properties of interest to the pharmaceutical industry.
 
Isolated from a marine microorganism off the coast of Alicante by the company BioMar, baringolin shows promising antibiotic activity at a very low concentration. The Combinatorial Lab headed by Fernando Albericio at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), which collaborates with BioMar, has now synthesized this molecule and revealed its structure. Today's results open up the possibility to better understand how this substance works and to design derivatives to turn into a viable drug in the next 10 years. These findings are published in todays' online edition of the journal Angewandte Chemie.

read all at

http://scicasts.com/bioit/1858-drug-development/6186-lab-reproduction-of-marine-compound-with-antibiotic-properties

From left to right, this image shows researchers Mercedes Alvárez, Xavier Just-Baringo and Fernando Albericio from the IRB Barcelona.
(Photo Credit: IRB Barcelona)

Xavier Just, PhD student at IRB Barcelona, has reproduced the natural structure in the lab

 Reference article:
Total Synthesis and Stereochemical Assignment of Baringolin
Xavier Just-Baringo, Paolo Bruno, Lars K. Ottesen, Librada M. Cañedo, Fernando Albericio and Mercedes Álvarez.
Angewandte Chemie (2013) http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ange.201302372 (German Edition) http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201302372 (International Edition)

Natural Products from St. John's Wort

Natural Products from St. John's Wort

Enatiomers (−)-hyperione A and (−)-hyperione B can be synthesised from a common precursor in ten steps
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http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/1238795/Natural_Products_from_St__Johns_Wort.html