It is a matter of common knowledge that the phenol coefficients of most organic disinfectants vary with the length of the alkyl chain that may be present or introduced into the molecule. As a rule, the germicidal power against both common test organisms, Bacterium typhosum and Staphylococcus aureus, increases with increasing length of the alkyl chain up to a point determined by the lack of solu...

Cuticular waxes play crucial roles in protecting plants against biotic and abiotic stresses. They are complex mixtures of very-long-chain fatty acids and their derivatives, including C20-C32 fatty alcohols. Here, we report the identification of 32 FAR-like genes and the detailed characterization of TaFAR2, TaFAR3 and TaFAR4, wax biosynthetic genes encoding fatty acyl-coenzyme A reductase (FAR) ...

Oxidative cyclizations of a variety of heteroatom nucleophiles onto unactivated olefins are catalyzed by palladium(II) and pyridine in the presence of molecular oxygen as the sole stoichiometric oxidant in a nonpolar solvent (toluene). Reactivity studies of a number of N-ligated palladium complexes show that chelating ligands slow the reaction. Nearly identical conditions are applicable to five...

A waxy cuticle that serves as a protective barrier against uncontrolled water loss and environmental damage coats the aerial surfaces of land plants. It is composed of a cutin polymer matrix and waxes. Cuticular waxes are complex mixtures of very-long-chain fatty acids and their derivatives. We report here the molecular cloning and characterization of CER4, a wax biosynthetic gene from Arabidop...

The hydrocarbonylation of alkenes, including allyl alcohol, catalysed by rhodium complexes and wide angle bidentate ligands together with PEt(3), gives alcohols as the primary products with high chemo and regio-selectivity.

When primary unsaturated alcohols were treated with a catalytic amount of RuHCl(CO)(PPh3)3 in benzene under reflux, dimerization reactions took place to give alpha-hydroxymethyl ketones as major product.

[reaction: see text] Anomalous ozonolysis of strained bicyclic allylic alcohols yields alpha-hydroxymethyl ketones. The proposed mechanism involves an unusual trapping of the primary ozonide that undergoes a Grob-like fragmentation instead of dissociating into the Criegee intermediates.

Extracts of the cells of Comamonas terrigena, grown under a variety of different conditions, contain two distinct, constitutive, NAD-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes that can be separated by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis. One of the enzymes exhibits activity towards D-alkan-2-ols and primary alcohols and the other is active towards L-alkan-2-ols, symmetrical secondary alcohols and p...

The tetrametallic ruthenium-oxo-hydroxo-hydride complex {[(PCy(3))(CO)RuH](4)(mu(4)-O)(mu(3)-OH)(mu(2)-OH)} (1) was synthesized in two steps from the monomeric complex (PCy(3))(CO)RuHCl (2). The tetrameric complex 1 was found to be a highly effective catalyst for the transfer dehydrogenation of alcohols. Complex 1 showed a different catalytic activity pattern towards primary and secondary benzy...