The WBC-2 consortium is an organohalide-respiring anaerobic microbial enrichment culture capable of dechlorinating 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane (TeCA) to ethene. In the WBC-2 culture, TeCA is first transformed to trans-dichloroethene (tDCE) by dichloroelimination; tDCE is subsequently transformed to vinyl chloride (VC) and then to ethene by hydrogenolysis. Analysis of 16S rRNA gene clone libraries...

Three Boc-protected fragments of the human leukocyte interferon, LeIFA, have been synthesized: I, BOC LeIFA (99-105) (BOC-Val-Ile-Gln-Gly-Val-Gly-Val); II, BOC LeIFA (116-119) (BOC-Ile-Leu-Ala-Val); III, BOC LeIFA (123-126) (BOC-Phe-GlnArg(Tos)-Ile). The presence of the Boc-group was desired so that these peptides could serve as intermediates in fragment condensation toward larger segments of i...

Chiral inositols (D-chiro-inositol from D-pinitol and L-chiro-inositol from L-quebrachitol) were converted to the 3,4-di-O-benzyl ethers, which were selectively benzoylated to yield the 1,2,5-tri-O-benzoyl-3,4-di-O-benzyl-chiro-inositols. The free hydroxyl group in each derivative was inverted by way of the trifluoromethane sulfonate ester to provide D- and L-1,2,4-tri-O-benzoyl-5,6-di-O-benzyl...

A combinative pretreatment technology of steam explosion (SE) and alkali was applied to enhance hydrogenolysis conversion of corn stalk into polyol with Ni-W2C or Fe-Mn-K catalyst. The results showed that treatments corn stalk with 0.4 MPa SE and alkali removed 84.16 wt% of hemicellulose and 71.83 wt% of lignin and thereby increased the cellulose content from 31.54 to 80.41 wt%. But the glucose...

Carbon aerogels prepared at different carbonization temperatures and with varying mesopore volumes were used as supports for Pt catalysts to study the n-C4H10/H2 reaction. Mean Pt particle size depended on the mesopore volume of the support, showing a linear decrease when the mesopore volume increased. The turnover frequency (TOF) for hydrogenolysis was much higher than for isomerization in cat...

Carbon-supported Pt catalysts are highly active and reusable for the aqueous-phase hydrodeoxygenation of phenols as lignin models without adding any acids. It is suggested that Pt/carbon facilitates the hydrogenation of phenols and the hydrogenolysis of the resulting cyclohexanols.

Key elements in this communication are a very efficient microwave synthesis of [RuCp(naphthalene)][PF(6)], the precursor of [RuCp(CH(3)CN)(3)][PF(6)], and a Pd-catalysed asymmetric hydrogenolysis to afford planar chiral ruthenium complexes with high levels of enantioselectivity using a bulky chiral phosphoramidite ligand.