Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 18, Issue 10, 2014

Heterogeneous catalysis is an important field of organic chemistry and has some obvious advantages such as easy separation, no corrosion, and negligible waste production. It is well known that heterogeneous catalysis has played a significant role in the synthesis of organics and fine chemicals. In recent years, however, the technique of heterogeneous catalysis has also been extended to the field of energy and enviro Read More

Asymmetric catalysis is unique in the sense that a minute quantity of a chiral catalyst is sufficient to produce large amounts of the desired chiral product [1]. With the increased demand for chiral products a number of efficient asymmetric homogeneous catalysts based on transition metal complexes with versatile chiral privileged ligands have been developed that work for a wide range of organic reactions. Their application Read More

The recent progress, particularly in this decade, in enantioselective hydrogenation using nanoporous materials supported catalysts was reviewed. The main content consists of the enantioselective hydrogenation or asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of prochiral carbonyl compounds or other prochiral substrates containing C=C or C=N double bonds using the immobilized chiral metal complex catalysts onto nanoporous materi Read More

The research and development of functional nanostructured carbons (FNCs) or FNC-based catalysts for heterogeneous catalysis is a highly dynamic and important topic in academia and industry because FNCs show integrated advantages: accessible pore system, regular pore structure, controlled bulk composition and surface chemistry, rapid ionic and electron mobility, etc as compared to their conventional analogs. Rat Read More

Periodic Mesoporous Organosilicas (PMOs) emerged on the scene of Materials Chemistry in 1999. Since then, the literature concerning their synthesis, characterization and applications has rapidly grown. From the very beginning, one of their main applications has been for heterogeneous catalysis. In order to impart them a catalytic behaviour, they have been functionalized to create catalytic sites on their pore walls, some Read More

Mesoporous solid superbases have high potentials for applications as environmentally friendly catalysts in diverse reactions. However, the generation of strong basicity on mesoporous silica is quite difficult because of the weak guest-host (precursor-silica) interaction and the poor alkali-resistant capacity of host. In this paper, a method was developed to generate strong basicity on mesoporous silica SBA-15 by precoating Read More

The recent progress, particularly in this decade, in catalytic applications of mesoporous ZSM-5 was reviewed. Mesoporous ZSM-5 materials aim to combine the shape-selectivity from micropores of ZSM-5 with enhanced mass transportation from the additional mesoporosity in catalytic reactions. The reactions discussed in this review are classified into two types: (1) the reactions mainly occurred on the external surface Read More

Several environmental benign processes have been developed for transformation of aromatics utilizing zeolite catalysts with controlled porosities and diffusivities. This review aims to summarize the available pore engineering techniques for zeolites and relevant enhancement in catalytic performances during aromatics conversion reactions, especially in terms of para-dialkylbenzene product selectivity and stabilit

Energy and environmental issues are the focus of our concerns, which have become increasingly important nowadays. There is no denying that carbon dioxide is the culprit of greenhouse effect due to the excessive consumption of fossil-based fuels in the past centuries. In order to mitigate the effect of CO2 on the environment and to realize the goal of sustainable development, it is of great importance to convert it into fuels Read More

Photocatalytic nanocomposites have attracted increasing attention due to their potential for solving energy and environmental problems. Carbon-based materials that are stable, highly electroconductive, and easy to be modified, are increasingly being used to form composites with semiconductors to enhance their photocatalytic activity. This review surveys recent literature and highlights the progress being made in Read More

Selective oxidation of organic compounds in liquid-phase heterogeneous photocatalysis is crucially important, and the promising reaction routes attracted great attention in the past few years. Many novel systems were designed to obtain high selectivity for organic synthesis and the mechanism was proposed. This paper reviews the recent developments of liquid-phase heterogeneous photocatalysis for organic synthe Read More