Density functional theory investigations reveal that a cavitand with an introverted aldehyde group not only provides the host-guest interaction for preorganizing the substrate and stabilizing the hemiaminal intermediate, but also acts as an acid/base catalyst in the subsequent dehydration step in its reaction with a primary amine.

A simple and efficient Pd/Al2O3-NR-RD catalyst was prepared by depositing palladium on a shape controllable Al2O3-NR support through a two-step process that involves hydrothermal synthesis of Al2O3-NRs followed by reductive-deposition of palladium. This catalyst showed high activity in the catalytic formylation of amines by CO2-H2 under mild conditions with up to 96% yield.

Selective nucleophilic substitution on a perfluorophenyl unit comprising a BODIPY fluorophore using an alkanethiol or a primary amine offers a quantitative fluorophore labelling strategy, while retaining high photostability and emission quantum yields approaching unity.

For the first time, a catalytic asymmetric Henry reaction of 1H-pyrrole-2,3-diones was achieved with a chiral bifunctional amine-thiourea as a catalyst possessing multiple hydrogen-bond donors. With this developed method, a range of 3-hydroxy-3-nitromethyl-1H-pyrrol-2(3H)-ones bearing quaternary stereocenters were obtained in acceptable yield (up to 75%) and enantioselectivity (up to 73% ee).

We report a highly enantioselective CuH-catalyzed Markovnikov hydrosilylation of vinylarenes and vinyl heterocycles. This method has a broad scope and enables both the synthesis of isolable silanes and the conversion of crude products to chiral alcohols. Density functional theory calculations support a mechanism proceeding by hydrocupration followed by σ-bond metathesis with a hydrosilane.

A chiral sulfonamide primary amine-organocatalysed, highly enantioselective Michael addition of malonates to enones has been developed. This reaction afforded the corresponding products in excellent yields (up to 99%) and excellent enantioselectivity (up to 99% ee).

We characterized the dissociation of polymer/DNA polyplexes designed for gene delivery using water-soluble quantum dots (QDs). A pH-responsive pentablock copolymer was designed to form stable complexes with plasmid DNA via tertiary amine segments. Dissociation of the polyplex was induced using chloroquine where the efficiency of this process was sensed through changes in QD fluorescence. We fou...

In the title compound, [Cu(C(24)H(27)N(4)O(3))]ClO(4), the Cu(II) atom has a distorted square-planar coordination geometry and is surrounded by an N(3)O donor set composed of a secondary amine N, a primary amine H, an imino N and a naphthalen-2-olate O atom. An intra-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bond occurs. In the crystal, mol-ecules are held together by inter-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bonds, leadi...

Highly efficient catalytic asymmetric [3 + 2] cycloadditions using a chiral copper amide are reported. Compared with the chiral CuOTf/Et3N system, the CuHMDS system showed higher reactivity, and the desired reactions proceeded in high yields and high selectivities with catalyst loadings as low as 0.01 mol %.