How Not to Discover a New Reagent. The Evolution and Chemistry of Woollins' Reagent

The pathways in research can be complex. This review provides a personal account of the winding scientific and funding road that led to Woollins' reagent. The synthesis and applications of Woollins' reagent are summarised.PostprintPeer reviewe

Development of highly selective ligands for separations of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle

This account summarizes recent work by us and others on the development of ligands for the separation of actinides from lanthanides contained in nuclear waste streams in the context of a future European strategy for nuclear waste management. The current status of actinide/lanthanide separations worldwide is briefly discussed, and the synthesis, development, and testing of different classes of heterocyclic soft N- and S-donor ligands in Europe over the last 20 years is presented. This work has led to the current benchmark ligand that displays many of the desirable qualities for industrial use. The improvement of radiolytic stability through ligand design is also discussed

(Phosphanyl)phosphaketenes as building blocks for novel phosphorus heterocycles.

Although BH3 simply coordinates the endocyclic P of (phospholidino)phosphaketene 1Dipp , the bulkier B(C6F5)3 gives rise to a zwitterionic diphosphirenium, which is a novel type of 2π-electron aromatic system as shown by the calculated NICS values. While the reaction of 1Dipp with Na[PCO(dioxane) x ] is unselective, the same reaction with the sterically bulky (phospholidino)phosphaketene 1Ar** [Ar** = 2,6-bis[di(4-tert-butylphenyl)methyl]-4-methylphenyl selectively affords a sodium bridged dimer containing a hitherto unknown λ3,λ5,λ3-triphosphete core. The latter formally results from "P-" addition to a 1,3-P/C-dipole. Similarly, adamantyl isonitrile adds to 1Dipp giving a 4-membered phosphacycle. In contrast to 1, the phosphaketene derived from the electrophilic diazaphospholidine-4,5-dione is unstable and reacts with a second molecule of Na[PCO(dioxane) x ] to afford a 1,3,4-oxadiphospholonide derivative

Iodoaminations of alkenes

The activation of alkenes and their subsequent functionalization is a frequently used methodology in synthetic chemistry. This review highlights recent iodine-mediated aminations and elaborates on the various strategies to bring about regio- or stereoselective transformations

Radical Cyclization of Trichloroacetamides: Synthesis of Lactams

Trichloroacetamides can act as radical precursors to synthesize nitrogen-containing heterocycles in a variety of processes, mainly involving atom transfer radical cyclizations (ATRC), mediated by Cu(I) or Ru(II) catalysts, and the hydride reductive method, employing either Bu3SnH or (Me3Si)3SiH, or recently NaBH3CN. Additionally, amine-mediated single-electron transfer cyclizations, as well as radical processes promoted by Ni, Fe, Mn, Ti, and Ag, have been developed

Nitridogermanate Nitrides Sr7[GeN4]N2 and Ca7[GeN4]N2

The alkaline earth nitridogermanate nitrides AE7[GeN4]N2 (AE = Ca, Sr) have been synthesized using a Na flux technique in sealed Ta tubes. According to single-crystal X-ray diffraction the isotypic compounds crystallize in space group Pbcn (No. 60) with Z = 4, (Sr7[GeN4]N2: a = 1152.6(2), b = 658.66(13), c = 1383.6(3) pm, V = 1050.5(4) × 106 pm3, R1 = 0.049; Ca7[GeN4]N2: a = 1082.6(2), b = 619.40(12), c = 1312.1(3) pm, V = 879.8(3) × 106 pm3, R1 = 0.016). Owing to the high N/Ge ratio, the compounds contain discrete N3− ions coordinated by six AE2+ besides discrete [GeN4]8− tetrahedrons. One of the AE2+ ion is coordinated by only four N3− ions, which is rather an unusual low coordination number for Sr2+. Together with the isolated [GeN4]8− tetrahedrons, these Sr2+ ions form chains of alternating cation centered edge sharing tetrahedrons. The electronic structure and chemical bonding in Sr7[GeN4]N2 has been analyzed employing linear muffin-tin orbital (LMTO) band structure calculations

Collaboration in Iranian Scientific Publications

This study looks at international collaboration in Iranian scientific publications through the ISI Science Citation Index® (SCI) for the years 1995-1999, inclusive. These results are compared to and contrasted with the earlier findings for the periods covering 1985-1994 (Osareh & Wilson 2000). The results of Iran's increasing productivity over a 15-year period are presented. Iran doubled its output in the first two five-year periods and increased 2.8-fold from the second to the third five-year period. The rise in Iran's scientific publication output is due mainly to factors such as the ending of the war, better economic conditions, recent changes in the Iranian government's policy, basic changes in the political environment brought about by the Reformers, expansion of the Iranian presses for national publications, and the recent return of a large number of students trained overseas through government scholarships. External changes also account for the increased productivity, e.g., the acceptance of three Iranian source journals by the SCI, increased access to international databases through the Internet and better electronic communication facilities for international collaboration. One of the most important and significant factors that caused this dramatic rise seems to be the government's research policies in the last few years. Since 1999, the Iran Science, Research and Technology Ministry, has encouraged researchers to publish their non-Farsi language articles in highly ranked international scientific journals, for example, by giving prizes to researchers who publish their articles in ISI-ranked journals

Structure and diffusion in amorphous aluminium silicate: A molecular dynamics computer simulation

The amorphous aluminium silicate (Al2O3)2(SiO2) [AS2] is investigated by means of large scale molecular dynamics computer simulations. We consider fully equilibrated melts in the temperature range 6100K >= T >= 2300K as well as glass configurations that were obtained from cooling runs from T=2300K to 300K with a cooling rate of about 10^12K/s. Already at temperatures as high as 4000K, most of the Al and Si atoms are four-fold coordinated by oxygen atoms. Thus, the structure of AS2 is that of a disordered tetrahedral network. The packing of AlO4 tetrahedra is very different from that of SiO4 tetrahedra in that Al is involved with a relatively high probability in small-membered rings and in triclusters in which an O atom is surrounded by four cations. We find as typical configurations two-membered rings with two Al atoms in which the shared O atoms form a tricluster. On larger length scales, the system shows a microphase separation in which the Al-rich network structure percolates through the SiO2 network. The latter structure gives rise to a prepeak in the static structure factor at a wavenumber q=0.5\AA^{-1}. The comparison of experimental X-ray data with the results from the simulation shows a good agreement for the structure function. The diffusion dynamics in AS2 is found to be much faster than in SiO2. We show that the self-diffusion constants for O and Al are very similar and that they are by a factor of 2-3 larger than the one for Si.Comment: 30 pages of Latex, 13 figure