Mini-Reviews in Organic Chemistry - Volume 20, Issue 3, 2023

In the past two decades, low melting mixtures have become attractive because of their interesting characteristics such as physicochemical properties, low cost of components, easiness of preparation, low toxicity, biorenewability and biodegradability. Carbohydrates the most important and widespread renewable compounds on earth, are introduced in low melting mixtures to get more cost-effective and renewable solvents. The present review mainly focuses on the properties and applications of low melting mixtures, which completely satisfy the green chemistry principles. Many physicochemical properties of low melting mixtures have been studied recently. The various studies included thermal stability, glass transition temperature, density, viscosity, acidity, surface tension, refractive index, FT-IR spectra, conductivity, etc. The application towards organic synthesis makes the low melting mixtures very important. Low melting mixtures and their use as a solvent in organic synthesis and their dual role as catalyst and solvent are discussed.

Removing harmful species from water is essential for the protection of the environment and human health. Among various treatment techniques, adsorption is particularly attractive because of its advantages of easy operation, high removal efficiency, environmental friendliness and simple regeneration of the adsorbent. As the key factor of this technique, the choice of adsorbent is vital. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been widely used as adsorbents to remove dyes, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and metal ions from aqueous solutions because of their high porosity, structural diversity, and highly tunable pore shape/size and surface functionality. This work systematically reviews the recent progress on applying different types of MOFs, e.g., ZIF, MIL, and UiO series, in the field of adsorption of these harmful species. Modification of novel MOF materials can greatly improve their adsorption performance. This review provides a direction for the rational design of MOF adsorbents to effectively remove various pollutants from water.

With the increasing shortage of water resources and the improvement in people's awareness regarding environmental protection, the traditional water pollution control technology cannot meet the needs of the development of environmental protection. In recent years, the rapid development of nanotechnology and nanomaterials has provided a good opportunity for the innovation of water treatment technology and has attracted the extensive attention of many environmental researchers. In particular, new functional magnetic nanomaterials with good adsorption properties, good chemical stability, easy regeneration, and easy solid-liquid separation have become hot topics in the field of water pollution control. This paper aims to provide the present research progress of magnetic nanomaterials in water pollution control, including the striking characteristics and preparation methods of the most well-known magnetic nanomaterials, as well as their applications in the water pollution control field. Concluding remarks and future trends have also been pointed out.

Malignant tumor is one of the diseases threatening human life and health. Traditional antitumor therapy has some limitations in clinical application, so the development of targeted antitumor drugs has become one of the important research directions in cancer medicine. Since the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor was approved in 2001, this research field has attracted global attention. In this survey, the Web of Science database was adopted to make a bibliometric analysis of the global scientific production of receptor tyrosine kinases in recent 20 years. A total of 14378 documents related to the subject were retrieved and analyzed according to six main aspects: area, journal, country, institution, authors, and keywords. The results showed United States as currently in a leading position in this field and to establish the largest cooperation network with other countries. Harvard University has made the greatest contribution to the field of receptor tyrosine kinases, including the number of publications, the average number of citations per paper, and the h-index. Besides, PLOS One ranked first among the top 15 academic journals in the number of publications related to receptor tyrosine kinases during the survey period. Our research comprehensively evaluates the research status and cooperation network of receptor tyrosine kinases, hoping to help researchers in guiding their projects or finding potential collaborators.

Chalcones(1, 3, diaryl-2-propen-1-ones) are prominent compounds and therefore, various procedures have been worked out for their synthesis. This review highlights the synthesis and pharmacological properties of chalcone derivatives. Chalcones are flavonoids that have been studied extensively for their medicinal and biological properties. These chalcone derivatives have shown important antimalarial, anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antituberculosis, anticonvulsant, antileishmanial, and anti-HIV properties. The new structural classes of compounds may prove to be lead molecules and good candidates for future investigations.

The thiazole scaffold is an essential structural foundation in a plethora of pharmaceutical products having an extensive array of biological activities. Consequently, its synthesis has been extensively discussed in the literature. In this mini review, we have summarized the recent advances in thiazole synthesis, covering articles published between 2002 and 2021. We have reviewed and discussed various recent and novel routes for synthesizing compounds containing thiazole rings from various starting materials such as thiourea, thioamide, or thiosemicarbazone. Additionally, we have illustrated environmentally benign methods for thiazole synthesis. We hope that this review can help other researchers efficiently synthesize the thiazole ring.

Compounds containing a C=N moiety, namely imines, have been widely used for industrial purposes due to their various biological activities. Cyclic imines are an essential class of nitrogen-based heterocycles and valuable scaffolds for designing and obtaining new biologically active compounds. However, the proposal and implementation of synthetic methods for this heterocyclic system are mainly conditioned by different structural and stereoelectronic considerations. Therefore, it can be complex and sometimes limited to a selected group of heterocyclic compounds. The following review paper is structured to search and collect different synthesis methods of cyclic imines and identify the main progress currently achieved. It addresses this topic using structural considerations, physical properties, and reactivity. The synthesis methods described below have implemented strategies based on cyclo-condensation reactions, radical cyclizations, electrocyclic closures, and carbon-carbon coupling by metal-organic catalysis. These methods have contributed significantly to organic chemistry knowledge. In addition, an analysis of such synthesis methods from applying the principles of green and circular chemistry is presented, evaluating the potential applications, limitations, perspectives, and impact of these methods on the environment.

The isolation of Rebeccamycin, a family of indolocarbazole alkaloids from natural sources, and the biosynthesis of this class of compounds are briefly reviewed. Rebeccamycin and its analogues have been extensively studied by medicinal chemists, over the last four decades, due to its wide range of biological activities, predominantly with neuroprotective and antitumor properties.