Hydrocarbons are ubiquitous in the ocean, where alkanes such as pentadecane and heptadecane can be found even in waters minimally polluted with crude oil. Populations of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, which are responsible for the turnover of these compounds, are also found throughout marine systems, including in unpolluted waters. These observations suggest the existence of an unknown and wid...

Project description: C2-C5 alkanes, alkenes and alkynes are useful tracers of natural and anthropogenic emissions. With diverse emission sources and moderately short atmospheric lifetimes, non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) exhibit significant latitudinal, seasonal and vertical gradients [1]. They primarily react with the hydroxyl (OH) radical in the atmosphere, although also with ozone, nitrate,...

Molecular geochemical methods have shown that it is often dicult to di€erentiate between coaland interbedded shale-sourced oils, even though coals and interbedded shales may exhibit considerable organic in ̄ux variation (e.g. land plant vs algal organic matter) due to the changes of depositional setting. However, compound-speci®c stable carbon isotopic compositions are sensitive to the source i...

Rapid global industrialization in the past decades has led to extensive utilization of fossil fuels, which resulted in pressing environmental problems due to excessive carbon emission. This prompted increasing interest in developing advanced biofuels with higher energy density to substitute fossil fuels and bio-alkane has gained attention as an ideal drop-in fuel candidate. Production of alkane...

Enzymes of the AlkB and CYP153 families catalyze the first step in the catabolism of medium-chain-length alkanes, selective oxidation of the alkane to the 1-alkanol, and enable their host organisms to utilize alkanes as carbon sources. Small, gaseous alkanes, however, are converted to alkanols by evolutionarily unrelated methane monooxygenases. Propane and butane can be oxidized by CYP enzymes ...

Byssochlamys sp. isolate BYSS01 (anamorph, Paecilomyces sp.), which was isolated from jet fuel, is highly adapted to grow in hydrocarbons, having predicted genes involved in degradation of n-alkanes, branched alkanes, and aromatic compounds. The draft genome size is estimated at 29 Mb, containing 8,509 proteins.

A metal-free radical oxidative carbonylation of alkanes is demonstrated, yielding esters and imides by means of di-tert-butylperoxide as an oxidant. Various alkanes, alcohols and amides were compatible in this system generating the desired carbonyl products in up to 86% yields. We proposed a plausible radical cross-coupling process based on the preliminary mechanistic studies.

Hydrocarbon profiles on the cuticle of social insects act as multi-component recognition cues used to identify membership in a species, a colony or, within colonies, cues about its reproductive status or task group. To examine the role of structural complexity in ant hydrocarbon recognition cues, we studied the species recognition response of two ant species, Linepithema humile and Aphaenogaste...

Several hundreds of so-called molecular structuredescriptors were proposed in the chemical literature [1] and are used for modeling of various physical and chemical properties of (mainly) organicmolecules. In general, a molecular structure-descriptor is a number, usually computed from the molecular graph [2, 3], that reflects certain topological features [4, 5] of the underlying molecule. Many ...

We here describe a new copper-catalyzed oxidative coupling of acids with alkanes for the selective synthesis of allylic esters and alkylalkenes. This method achieves multiple dehydrogenation and esterification, representing a new unactivated C(sp(3))-H oxidative esterification of acids with common alkanes.