Synthetic Chemistry Innovations

According to the theory, small particles dissolve and redeposit onto the surface of large particles, and the large particles continue to grow until all of the small particles have dissolved. But, Berkeley Lab scientists including Dr. Peter Ercius and Dr. Haimei Zheng revealed that nanoparticle growth is directed not by difference in size, but by defects. Using high-resolution liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (LC-TEM) at the Molecular Foundry,of the Berkeley Lab the researchers captured real-time, atomic-scale LC-TEM videos of Cd-CdCl₂ CSNPs ripening in solution. Researchers conducted the in-situ LC-TEM experiments on the image-corrected Thermo Fisher Scientific ThemIS microscope equipped with a third-order spherical aberration image-corrector which corrects all coherent axial aberrations up to the 3rd order while partially compensating 4th and 5th order aberrations. This phase-contrast TEM image-series visualizes the defect-mediated ripening process of Cd-CdCl₂ core-shell particles at 50 fps. Read the findings published in the journal Nature Communications. https://lnkd.in/dYyY2UWt

🧪 A new reagent for amide bond formation has been reported and it's... drum roll please... DCM. 🔍 Paper here: https://lnkd.in/emsaEXX5 Yes, dichloromethane. ⚗️ The authors show that a combination of DCM, DMSO and sodium bicarbonate at 80 °C can facilitate amide bond formation across a broad range of carboxylic acids and amines. The optimisation studies were performed using the classic benzoic acid/benzylamine model system, which presents an interesting opportunity for a bit of community science. Most chemistry labs already have everything required to test this methodology. 💡 If you try it, feel free to post your LCMS traces in the comments. I'd be very interested to see how the reaction performs in the real world. 📊 DCM comes with well-known drawbacks, including concerns around toxicity, sustainability and ongoing phase-out initiatives in some parts of the world. Nevertheless, it remains one of the organic chemist's most reliable workhorses. What makes this chemistry particularly interesting is that the methodology has already been demonstrated on decagram scale. As a coupling reagent, DCM would also be inexpensive and could potentially simplify purification workflows relative to more traditional amide-coupling technologies. ⚠️ The reaction isn't without limitations. One notable drawback is racemisation at acidic α-positions in certain amino acid-derived substrates, which may restrict its applicability in some settings. 🚀 Still, it's not every day that a solvent we've all used thousands of times turns up with an entirely new trick. We haven't seen the end of DCM yet. #OrganicSynthesis #ContinuousImprovement #PersonalDevelopment

Mexico made plastic from cactus — and it disappears like a leaf in the dirt In a small lab in Guadalajara, surrounded by desert succulents and the sharp scent of green nopal, Mexican chemical engineer Sandra Pascoe Ortiz has done something that could rewrite the future of packaging. She has created plastic — not from oil, but from cactus juice. And when it’s tossed into the soil, it vanishes like a fallen leaf in the rain. The key ingredient? The common prickly pear cactus, known as “nopal” in Mexico — a plant so abundant it’s found in gardens, fields, even on dinner plates. Ortiz’s breakthrough lies in extracting the viscous, sticky juice from its thick green pads and turning it into a polymer film that mimics the flexibility and strength of plastic — without any of the toxins or environmental cost. What sets this cactus plastic apart isn’t just that it’s plant-based — it’s how fast it disappears. In regular garden soil, it biodegrades in just 2 to 3 months. In water, it dissolves in less than a week. No microplastics. No residues. No landfill centuries. The material is also edible and non-toxic, making it safe for wildlife and ocean life alike — a vital factor in a planet drowning in plastic waste. Even more impressive, the process doesn’t harm the cactus. Only mature leaves are trimmed, allowing the plant to regenerate naturally. The juice is mixed with glycerin, natural waxes, and proteins, then poured into molds and dried — no synthetic chemicals, no industrial waste. It’s low-energy, low-cost, and perfectly tailored to the arid Mexican climate. Today, Ortiz’s cactus plastic is being prototyped for use in bags, packaging, and even edible wrappers. In rural markets and coastal towns where plastic pollution is devastating ecosystems, the cactus could become more than a crop — it could be the future of circular design. Mexico’s deserts may have just handed us the solution to a global crisis — one green paddle at a time. #invention #design #renovation

Pfizer and AstraZeneca researchers just set a new bar for AI-driven drug discovery: generating novel ligands 70× faster with higher structural accuracy. 𝗙𝗟𝗢𝗪𝗥 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱, 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲-𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.  1. Outperformed all diffusion- and flow-based baselines on pose accuracy (PoseBusters-validity 0.92 vs. 0.83 for PILOT) and binding scores (Vina: -6.29 vs. -5.73).  2. Reduced inference time 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝟮𝟵𝟱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟮𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗱 on average, with valid ligand generation in as few as 20 steps.  3. Maintained or improved drug-like properties, including lower strain energy, improved synthesizability, and tighter alignment to reference bond geometries. Also, some other cool things from the paper:  • FLOWR.MULTI: enables fragment- and interaction-conditional generation for tasks like scaffold hopping and hit expansion  • SPINDR: a high-quality benchmark dataset of 35,666 pocket-ligand co-crystals Couple thoughts (I'll keep it short lol):  • There seems to be a broader shift from slow diffusion‑based methods to flow‑matching approaches. Let me know if you have seen this too  • FLOWR.MULTI cooly adopts the concept of image inpainting (used originally developed in computer vision to fill missing regions of images) to fix ligand fragments during generation. Nice cross-disciplinary work there Here's the awesome work: https://lnkd.in/gZhEYVp2 Congrats to Julian Cremer, Ross Irwin and co! I post my takes on the latest developments in health AI – 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱! Also, check out my health AI blog here: https://lnkd.in/g3nrQFxW

Chemists break 100-year-old rule that may rewrite textbooks and change drug development🤓👌⚗️🧫🧪🌡️💊 In a discovery that’s sending ripples through the chemistry world, UCLA scientists have proven that a fundamental rule of organic chemistry – one that has held back researchers for 100 years – isn’t as unbreakable as everyone thought. The breakthrough could open new paths for drug development and pharmaceutical research. The rule in question, known as Bredt’s rule, has been chemistry gospel since 1924. It’s like telling architects they can never build a certain type of bridge because the laws of physics won’t allow it. But now, UCLA researchers have not only built that “impossible” bridge – they’ve shown others how to do it too. “People aren’t exploring anti-Bredt olefins because they think they can’t,” says Neil Garg, UCLA’s Kenneth N. Trueblood Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who led the research, in a media release. “We shouldn’t have rules like this — or if we have them, they should only exist with the constant reminder that they’re guidelines, not rules. It destroys creativity when we have rules that supposedly can’t be overcome.” In this study, the researchers aimed to synthesize and trap anti-Bredt olefins (ABOs), a highly reactive and traditionally unstable type of molecule. They used a novel approach involving specially designed precursors treated with fluoride sources, which enabled the in-situ formation of ABOs. They conducted these reactions in the presence of various trapping agents to stabilize and capture the ABOs for analysis. Additionally, they applied computational models to predict and confirm the structures and reactivities of ABOs, using density functional theory (DFT) to understand the unique geometric distortions these molecules undergo. reference: https://lnkd.in/dvyxsJC7 #organicchemistry #nanotechnology #nanomaterials #nanoparticles #fragrances #aromatic #synthesis #DielsAlderreaction #nanomedicine #polymers #nanochemistry #materials #Supramolecularchemistry #greenchemistry #nanoscience #phdposition #greenchemistry #inorganicchemistry #chemistry #newmolecules #nanocomposite #neurological #nanosensor #biochemistry #nanochip #macromolecules #nanomotors #catenane #rotaxane #knot #interlockedmolecules #metalfree #Machinemolecules #Bredt’srule

🚨 Pd Catalysis Folks — You’ll Want to See This! 🚨 For those working with, studying, or teaching palladium catalysis, our latest work may shift how you think about the first elementary step of these reactions. It’s widely assumed that oxidative addition, a concerted, 2-electron process involving C–X bond cleavage and C–Pd bond formation, initiates Pd(0)-catalyzed reactions. But here's the twist: Our latest paper just out in JACS shows that under extreme steric hindrance, the mechanism flips - oxidative addition gives way to a radical pathway! 👉 Surprisingly, sterics don’t raise the barrier for oxidative addition much… 👉 But they greatly lower the barrier for 1-electron halogen abstraction (radical path). 👉 Why? Substrate destabilization = barrier lowering = faster reaction! Oh, and we’ve successfully located the elusive transition state for halogen abstraction by ground-state Pd(0) for aryl halide activation, something that’s been notoriously hard to pin down. If you teach, study, or use Pd catalysis, you’ll want to read this. Full story here: https://lnkd.in/eyTtguf9

Scientists at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati have developed an advanced sunlight-driven photocatalytic material that can convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) into methanol fuel, marking a notable step toward cleaner energy and emissions reduction. The research was carried out under the leadership of Prof. Mahuya De from the Department of Chemical Engineering and published in the Journal of Materials Science. The new catalyst works by combining graphitic carbon nitride with few-layer graphene, which enhances energy retention and charge generation under sunlight. This improvement helps overcome the limitations of earlier materials that lost energy quickly and produced fuel inefficiently. The most effective version of the material, with about 15% graphene by weight, demonstrated strong stability and improved conversion of CO₂ into methanol when exposed to sunlight.

⚗️ Why Pilot Plants Still Miss the Mark Even pilot plants aren’t always reliable indicators of full-scale production success. Why? Because 2L ≠ 2,000L — even if the chemistry is the same. What changes? 🔹Tank geometry 🔹Impeller size and shape 🔹Shear rate distribution 🔹Circulation flow patterns These shifts can completely alter reaction outcomes, crystallization behavior, or phase separation. 🛠 The solution? Use a hydrodynamic model of both the lab and production reactors to match: ✅ Power per volume ✅ Mixing time ✅ Local turbulence We recently did this using VisiMix for a pharma process scaling from 2L → 2,000L. 🎯 First try = success. If your "perfect" lab process didn’t survive scale-up — this could be why. 👉 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dbjPZe63 #PharmaEngineering #ProcessDevelopment #ScaleUp #ChemicalEngineering #MixingMatters #PilotPlant #TechTransfer #VisiMix #APIDevelopment #Hydrodynamics #QbD #ProcessOptimization #PharmaceuticalManufacturing

How do you build a $70,000 jacketed glass reactor? This is not just lab equipment. It is a precision-controlled environment where chemistry and biology intersect. A system where temperature defines success or failure. Here’s the concept: ↳ A jacketed glass reactor is a double-walled system ↳ A heat-transfer fluid circulates between the layers ↳ This enables precise control of reaction temperature Why does that matter? Because in complex systems: A few degrees can change everything. What it enables: ↳ Cooling exothermic reactions → Prevents runaway processes ↳ Heating the system → Supports synthesis and crystallization ↳ Maintaining stability → Ensures consistent reaction conditions -- Beyond chemistry: These reactors are widely used in: ↳ Biotechnology and pharmaceutical production ↳ API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) development ↳ Cell culture systems ↳ Enzymatic reactions and biosynthesis processes ---- How it’s built: ↳ Inner vessel Where reactions or biological processes occur ↳ Outer jacket Circulates water, oil, or thermal fluid ↳ Multiple ports For stirring, probes, vacuum lines, and reagent addition ---- Material choice: Most systems use borosilicate glass ↳ Resistant to thermal shock ↳ Chemically durable ↳ Transparent for real time observation Why ~$70,000? Because this is not mass production. ↳ Precision glassblowing Many components are handcrafted ↳ Extremely tight tolerances Perfect sealing is critical ↳ Resistance to pressure and vacuum fluctuations ↳ Compliance with pharmaceutical-grade standards --- The bigger picture: This is where science meets engineering. And where biology meets control. A transparent system… capable of guiding chemical and biological processes with remarkable precision. Not just glass. A controlled environment for molecules and life driven reactions. —————————————— 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 👉Muhammet Furkan Bolakar and 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗹 🔔 for more updates on how #robotics, #automation and #science are shaping the future. Robot Technology: +8K RoboSapienss Science Biology: Mr.Biyolog  Digital Marketing: Bignite Digital —————————————— DM me for a specific attribution or removal There is no economic benefit in this post. via: Philipp Kozin, PhD, EMBA Florian Palatini Miloš Kučera Eduardo BANZATO Amir Sanatkar Amine BOUDER Ulrich Moeller Christine Raibaldi Ahmed Rashed 🚀 Marcus Scholle Dr.-Ing. Eike Wolfram Schäffer Luis L. Marcus Scholle Marcin Gwóźdź Constantin Weiss Alexey Navolokin #Science #Chemistry #Pharmaceuticals #LabEquipment

What if the materials we rely on for fuels, plastics, and chemicals are already being produced every harvest season on farms across America? In California’s North San Joaquin Valley alone, billions of pounds of agricultural biomass such as nut shells, crop residues, and orchard trimmings are generated each year, much of it underutilized. The constraint has historically been infrastructure: the ability to convert this resource into useful products efficiently. That is beginning to change. Advances in conversion technologies, along with new efforts to map and mobilize biomass, are turning crop residues into a viable resource. Through Schmidt Sciences ‘ Virtual Institute for Feedstocks of the Future, initiatives like BioCircular Valley are working to connect research, data, and local partners to unlock these opportunities. As I mentioned in a recent post (https://lnkd.in/eURW6kbs), the convergence of biotechnology and new industrial systems will help define the next era of economic leadership. The emerging bioeconomy is one example of that shift already underway, as science and infrastructure align to produce essential materials at scale. In practice, this shift could reduce reliance on fossil inputs, lower emissions, and create new jobs across rural logistics, advanced manufacturing, and biotechnology, while providing farmers with additional revenue streams from materials that are currently underutilized. Learn more about biomass and its potential in this animated explainer video. This is the beginning of a shift where farms don’t just feed and fuel the world; they help build it.