Catalysis Science & Technology Blog

Laurent Lefort and Jared W. Fennell with colleagues had developed a way to improve the diastereoselectivity from 75:25 to 95:5 for a key reaction in generating glutamate antagonists.

The team screened a range of heterogeneous catalysts and found a Pd/C catalyst which should raise the yield by 40% and reduce the costs of the reaction compared to a currently used process involving a rhodium catalyst.

Glutamate acts as a neurotransmitter and antagonists are highly sought in the pharmaceutical industry for development of new drugs and treatments. Improving the yields and selectivity of the reactions to produce these compounds is an important area for catalyst development.

More details can be found in the teams article below, which will be published in our upcoming themed issue focusing on catalysis in industry

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A detailed study of the diastereoselective catalytic hydrogenation of 6-hydroxytetrahydroisoquinoline-(3R)-carboxylic ester intermediates
Laurent Lefort, Natascha Sereinig, Harrie Straatman, David J. Ager, Johannes G. de Vries, John A. Werner, Roger B. Scherer, Todd D. Maloney, Mark D. Argentine, Kevin A. Sullivan and Jared W. Fennell
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CY20251D

Which will also include,

Advances in conversion of hemicellulosic biomass to furfural and upgrade to biofuels
Basudeb Saha, saikat dutta, Sudipta De and Imteyaz Alam
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2CY20235B

Kinetic aspects and deactivation behaviour of chromia-based catalysts in hydrogen chloride oxidation
Amol P Amrute, Cecilia Mondelli and Javier Pérez-Ramírez
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2CY20185B

Multi-functional catalysts have huge potential; they can run simultaneous or consecutive reactions and facilitate complicated multi-reaction processes. The Fischer–Tropsch synthesis converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons, an interesting gas to liquid process which is ever more relevant with growing energy demands.

The catalyst shows excellent selectivity for the gasoline fraction hydrocarbons

This Hot Communication from Baoning Zong and colleagues details an interesting bifunctional Raney Fe/H-ZSM-5 catalyst which shows good selectivity and is very effective at converting the gases into gasoline-range hydrocarbons. The chemical structuring of the catalyst is key to its success – download the article below for more details.

A highly selective Raney Fe@HZSM-5 Fischer–Tropsch synthesis catalyst for gasoline production: one-pot synthesis and unexpected effect of zeolites
Bo Sun, Guobin Yu, Jun Lin, Ke Xu, Yan Pei, Shirun Yan, Minghua Qiao, Kangnian Fan, Xiaoxin Zhang and Baoning Zong

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Scientists from Japan have used waste slag (the high volume byproduct from iron making) to catalyse biofuel synthesis. Not only does this engineering strategy find a much-needed recycling alternative to slag, but renewable fuel, biodiesel is produced – a sustainable and environmentally-friendly alternative to petrochemicals.

Use of the slag-made hydrocalumite catalysts for large scale biodiesel synthesis promises an economical and ecological contribution to alleviate the fuel demands of the future.

Read the article here:  Transesterifications Using Hydrocalumite Synthesized from Waste Slag: An Economical and Ecological Route for Biofuel Production
Yasutaka Kuwahara, Keita Tsuji, Tetsutaro Ohmichi, Takashi Kamegawa, Kohsuke Mori and Hiromi Yamashita

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Heteroaromatic frameworks are valuable products with applications in a range of industries, the largest being in the pharmaceutical and drug discovery business. Developing the synthetic processes used to create these products is a growing field of research and enantioselective organocatalysis is proving to be an interesting and economic route to accomplish this.

This Perspective article from Karl Jørgensen’s group details a recently developed one-pot synthesis for constructing hydroxyalkyl- and aminoalkyl-substituted heteroaromatic compounds, these optically active products are formed in good yields with high enantioselectivities and minimal waste. Their novel methodology provides an important new route to synthesising heteroaromatic compounds for academia and industry alike.

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Organocatalytic synthesis of optically active heteroaromatic compounds
Łukasz Albrecht , Lars Krogager Ransborg and Karl Anker Jørgensen
DOI: 10.1039/C2CY20101A

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