Much effort has been devoted to the development of efficient asymmetric synthetic methods for the preparation of enantiomerically enriched compounds.1,2 Among various methods for the enantiomerically selective synthesis of chiral organic compounds from prochiral precursors, enantioselective catalytic hydrogenation of dehydro precursors has been extensively developed.3 In fact, asymmetric hydrog...

Pairwise and random addition processes are ordinarily indistinguishable in hydrogenation reactions. The distinction becomes important only when the fate of spin correlation matters, such as in parahydrogen-induced polarization (PHIP). Supported metal catalysts were not expected to yield PHIP signals given the rapid diffusion of H atoms on the catalyst surface and in view of the sequential stepw...

This manuscript probes the steric and electronic attributes that lead to "frustrated Lewis pair" (FLP)-type catalysis of imine hydrogenation by borenium ions. Hydride abstraction from (ItBu)HB(C6F5)22 prompts intramolecular C-H bond activation to give (CHN)2(tBu) (CMe2CH2)CB(C6F5)23, defining an upper limit of Lewis acidity for FLP hydrogenation catalysis. A series of seven N-heterocyclic carbe...

The CO2 hydrogenation to dimethyl ether (DME) is a potentially promising process for efficiently utilizing as renewable and cheap carbon resource. Currently, the one-step heterogeneous catalytic conversion of value-added chemicals exhibits higher efficiency than photocatalytic or electrocatalytic routes. However, typical catalysts DME still suffer from deficient space–time yield stability in in...

The potential of a larger number of sugar models to act as dihydrogen donors in transfer hydrogenation reactions has been quantified through the calculation of hydrogenation energies of the respective oxidized products. Comparison of the calculated energies to hydrogenation energies of nucleobases shows that many sugar fragment radicals can reduce pyrimidine bases such as uracil in a strongly e...

Carboxylic acids are ubiquitous in bio-renewable and petrochemical sources of carbon. Hydrogenation of carboxylic acids to yield alcohols produces water as the only byproduct, and thus represents a possible next generation, sustainable method for the production of these alternative energy carriers/platform chemicals on a large scale. Reported herein are molecular insights into cationic mononucl...

Palladium (Pd)-catalyzed selective hydrogenation of alkynes has been one of the most studied hydrogenation reactions in the last century. However, kinetic studies conducted to reveal the catalyst's active centers have been hindered because of dynamic surface changes on Pd during the reaction. In the present study, bimetallic Pd-Au nanoparticles supported on carbon nanotubes have been synthesize...

Metal-free hydrogenation of imines by phosphonium borate zwitterion R2PH(CQF4)BH(C6F5)2 (1, R = CH3, tBu), has been studied by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The study elucidates a two-step mechanism in which protonation of an imine by the phosphonium part of 1 is followed by hydride transfer to the C center from the borohydride part of 1. According to our calculations, the hydri...

synthesized from dipeptidyl chloromethyl ketones or methyl ketones. According to this novel procedure, various functional groups could be introduced into positions 3 and 6 of 1,2-dihydropyrazin-2-one by using appropriate amino acids (Chart 2). It had been assumed that the formation of the 1,2-dihydropyrazin-2-one ring from dipeptidyl chloromethyl ketones proceeded according to the mechanism sho...