This article published in a very high-ranked journal presents insight into photocatalytic performance with metal nanoclusters modified TiO2 coatings under solar light. It enables more efficient planning of similar new composites in the future. We showed that Ni is the metal, which positively influences solar driven photocatalytic activity of TiO2 in oxidation as well as reduction reactions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 6369818
Racemic 2,3-disubstituted 1-indanones with two stereolabile centres were stereoselectively reduced to chiral 2,3-disubstituted-1-indanols by ruthenium(II)-catalyzed dynamic kinetic resolution-asymmetric transfer hydrogenation. This route presents a synthetic pathway towards a new class of conformationally rigid enantiopure 1,4-diols which have four contiguous chiral centers. In addition, the study presents a transformation of a specific 1,4-diol into a Pallidol analogoue by means of a highly diastereo- and regioselective Friedel-Crafts benzylation of o-chloroanisole.
COBISS.SI-ID: 6387994
C–C bond formation is one of the most fundamental approaches toward molecular diversity in organic synthesis. In pursuit of environmentally friendlier chemical approaches to organic chemistry, we present a new metal-free method for direct dehydrative cross-coupling of alcohols and alkenes using molecular iodine as a Lewis acid catalyst under solvent-free reaction conditions. The reaction is atom-economical, tolerant to air and allows simple synthetic procedure, furnishing Csp3 – Csp2 coupling products with yields up to 97%. The method has proved efficient for coupling of secondary benzyl alcohols with phenyl-substituted alkenes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31055143
An efficient method for the synthesis of ?-iodoketones from allylic alcohols and elemental iodine is reported. We show in this paper that the isomerization of allylic alcohols catalyzed by iridium(III) complexes can be combined with an aerobic oxidative iodination protocol, resulting in a straightforward method for the synthesis of a wide range of ?-iodoketones as single constitutional isomers and in high yields under mild reaction conditions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1538065091
The article is part of PhD thesis of T. Čižmar supervised by I. Arčon and U. Lavrenčič Štangar. The Cu-modified TiO2-SiO2 photocatalysts were prepared by a low-temperature sol–gel method from organic Cu, Si and Ti precursors with various Cu concentrations (0.05–3 mol%). An up to three times increase in photocatalytic activity is obtained if the TiO2-SiO2 matrix is modified with Cu in a narrow concentration range from 0.05 to 0.1 mol%. At higher Cu loadings, the photocatalytic activity of the Cu-modified photocatalysts is lower than that of the un-modified reference TiO2-SiO2 photocatalyst. With Cu K-edge EXAFS and XANES analysis we demonstrated that the enhancement of photocatalytic activity of low-concentrated copper-modified titania–silica nanocomposites is due to a close attachment of Cu2+ cations to the surfaces of photocatalytically active TiO2 nanoparticles. In this way, Cu2+cations act as free electron traps, reducing the intensity of recombination between opposite free charge carriers (electrons, holes) available at the photocatalyst’s surface.
COBISS.SI-ID: 5203963