Daqian Xu

Treatment of two equivalents of Trip₂GaCl (Trip = 2,4,6-triisopropylphenyl) with pyrazine and 4,4′-bipyridine affords adducts 1 and 2 in high yields.

Environmentally friendly synthesis of isoquinolinones and quinolinones has been achieved in water solution by oxidation of isoquinolinium and quinolinium salts using oxygen under mild conditions. This reaction is compatible with numerous isoquinolinium and quinolinium salts. The results of the isotope labeling experiment (using ¹⁸O₂ and H₂ ¹⁸O) suggest that OH⁻ is the oxygen source of the forming products, and oxygen serves as the oxidant. Moreover, this method can be used to synthesize bioactive molecules such as a topoisomerase I inhibitor.

In the Loess Plateau region, the poor structure and properties of loess slopes will cause many types of geological disasters such as landslides, mudflow, land collapse, soil erosion, and ground cracking. In this paper, an eco-friendly polymer composite fertilizer (PCF) based on corn straw wastes (CS) and geopolymer synthesized from loess was studied. The characterization by FT-IR of the PCF confirmed that graft copolymer is formed, while morphological analysis by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy showed that geopolymer and urea were embedded in the polymer porous network. The effects of PCF contents on the compressive strength of loess were investigated. The PCF was characterized in terms of surface curing test, temperature and freeze-thaw aging property, water and wind erosion resistance, and remediation soil acidity and alkalinity property, which indicates that PCF can improve loess slope fixation and stability by physical and chemical effects. Moreover, the loess slope planting experiment showed that PCF can significantly increase the germination rate of vegetation from 31% to 68% and promote the survival rate of slope vegetation from 45.2% to 67.7% to enhance biological protection for loess slopes. The PCF meets the demands of building and roadbed slope protection and water-soil conservation in arid and semi-arid regions, which opens a new application field for multifunctional polymer composite fertilizers with low cost and environmental remediation.

The elimination of volatile organic solvents in organic synthesis is the most important goal in “Green” chemistry. We report a simple, efficient and facile method for the addition of progargyl bromide to carbonyl compounds using Mg metal as a mediator under solvent-free conditions which could regioselectively generate homopropargyl alcohols efficiently in good to excellent yields. The procedure has advantages such as short reaction time, operationally simple, excellent product yields, high regioselectivity and organic solvent-free.

A tetradentate nitrogen ligand containing a benzimidazole ring and an electron‐rich pyridine ring was developed, the resulting manganese complex exhibited good activity in the C−H oxidation of simple alkanes. In particular, cyclic aliphatic alkanes were transformed into ketones in very good yields (up to 89 %) by using environmentally benign H₂O₂ as the terminal oxidant. This protocol was also applied successfully in benzylic C−H oxidation, giving the corresponding ketones with very good selectivities. In addition, tertiary C−H bond oxidation of complex molecules by the manganese complex showed potential utility for assembling alcohols with good selectivity in late‐stage chemical synthesis.