'Green chemistry' using carbon dioxide, low-cost catalysts: New way of producing potent carbon–boron synthetic reagents
Friday, January 25, 2013 - 08:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Because carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is a freely available resource, there are concerted efforts worldwide to convert this molecule into a chemical feedstock. Zhaomin Hou and colleagues from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako have made important progress toward this goal by developing the first protocol for attaching both CO2 and boron atoms to unsaturated carbon–carbon triple bonds. This procedure uses inexpensive organic–copper catalysts to construct valuable 'building blocks' for chemists under mild, one-pot conditions.