Designing new materials from 'small' data

21-Feb-2017 - Finding new functional materials is always tricky. But searching for very specific properties among a relatively small family of known materials is even more difficult. But a team from Northwestern Engineering and Los Alamos National Laboratory found a workaround. The group developed a novel ...

Fluorescence dyes from the pressure cooker

01-Feb-2017 - The laboratory of Dr. Miriam M. Unterlass at the Institute of Materials Chemistry at TU Wien has just reported the synthesis of more than 20 different perylene bisimide dyes. This is not impressive per se. The way they prepare these compounds is though: Conventionally, perylene bisimides are ...

First catalysed reaction using iron salts developed

24-Jan-2017 - Scientists at the University of Huddersfield have developed a new chemical reaction that is catalysed using simple iron salts - an inexpensive, abundant and sustainable alternative to costlier and scarcer metals. The research could lead to huge economic gains in the pharmaceutical and ...

Low-cost technique converts bulk alloys to oxide nanowires

23-Jan-2017 - A simple technique for producing oxide nanowires directly from bulk materials could dramatically lower the cost of producing the one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures. That could open the door for a broad range of uses in lightweight structural composites, advanced sensors, electronic devices - and ...

Light powers new chemistry for old enzymes

23-Dec-2016 - Enzymes are nature's tools for catalyzing life's essential reactions. Though unrivaled in their efficiency and selectivity, enzymes only carry out a narrow range of natural reactions, limiting their usefulness in modern organic synthesis. Now, Princeton researchers report a method that expands ...

Faster (cheaper) method for making big bioactive ring molecules

14-Dec-2016 - Ring molecules called cyclic depsipeptides play an important role in living organisms. Microbes make them as part of their chemical arsenal for attacking competitors and they have proven effective as antibiotics, anti-retrovirals and pesticides, among other applications. One problem, however, has ...

New technique that could speed drug development

05-Dec-2016 - Synthesizing useful new compounds is what pharmaceutical discovery and development is all about. Researchers at the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis have devised a method to substantially speed up the process. The IUPUI chemists have developed and tested a ...

Pine product offers fresh take on fine chemical synthesis

01-Dec-2016 - The goop from pine trees that contains compounds known as terpenes is used in the manufacture of food, cosmetics and drugs, but it might become even more valuable as a chemical reagent made through a process developed by scientists at Rice University. The Rice lab of synthetic chemist László ...

Rapid synthesis towards optically active alpha-aminocarbonyl therapeutics

New catalytic asymmetric reaction directly installs amines into carbonyl compounds

24-Nov-2016 - A team of organic chemists at ITbM, Nagoya University, has developed a new reaction to directly install amines into carbonyl compounds using their unique phase-transfer catalyst. This unprecedented method leads to the rapid formation of optically active (chiral) α-aminocarbonyls, which are ...

Artificial enzyme for asymmetric synthesis using a synthetic chiral polymer

18-Oct-2016 - Enzymes, high-molecular-weight chiral polymeric compounds, are complex biological catalysts. Capture of the substrate molecule, catalyzing the reaction, and release of the product are three important events performed by enzymes. In order to accomplish these important events using a synthetic ...