Many things have happened during this year related to Chemistry, and it is always difficult to summarize them in only one article, but I will definitely do my best to make an analysis and report of the top chemistry facts and stories of year 2014: The Ebola crisis, the balance between scientific publications and investment, impressive advances in organic chemistry, more and more graphene, etc.
Most Popular Stories in Chemistry Research in 2014
Adding Salt to Improve the Taste of Negishi cross-couplings:
Negishi (who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry) Cross-Coupling is a very famous organic reaction used from its discovery, in 1977. The reaction consists on the formation of a new C-C bond between one aryl or alkyl halide and an R group (alkyl or aryl) which is transferred from a organometallic Zinc reagent, (which was usually a compound with a general formula R-Zn-R) through a transmetallation process using a palladium compound as a catalyst.
The addition of salts like ZnCl2 or LiCl was studied and it was concluded that it successfully improves the reaction in many cases and it makes it possible with reactants which showed no reaction at all without the salt addition.
Diarylzincs were known to readily transfer to palladium in solvents like THF without needing salt present, but for example, arylzinc halides (ArZnX) will not couple without salt, but the reaction proceeds with salt additive. Also the polarity of the solvent employed in the reaction has a determinant role on the activation of the zinc species. In fact, the addition of the salt affects the reaction augmenting the polarity of the solvent.
Related to biochemistry and synthetic biology, some more stories in chemistry: it was found that some bacterial cells happen to accept a new kind of expanded genetic code. Surprisingly, these living cells accepted DNA that was put into them, which was formed from three base pairs, not only A-T and G-C anymore, we have two additional ones, keep reading to find out more!
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