A Cornell-led collaboration is flipping the switch on traditional synthetic chemistry by using electricity to drive a new chemical reaction that previously stumped chemists who rely on conventional methods.
A Cornell-led collaboration is flipping the switch on traditional synthetic chemistry by using electricity to drive a new chemical reaction that previously stumped chemists who rely on conventional methods.
This new reaction – detailed in the team’s paper, “Dual Electrocatalysis Enables Enantioselective Hydrocyanation of Conjugated Alkenes,” published June 29 in Nature Chemistry – could spur the manufacture of a host of new, low-cost drugs.
The project was a collaboration between co-senior authors Song Lin and Robert A. DiStasio Jr., both assistant professors of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Lin’s lab is exploring the potential applications of electrochemistry, which drives chemical reactions with voltage instead of the reagents favored by traditional organic chemistry. Those reagents can be expensive and difficult to control at larger scales. And while electrochemistry is often employed in battery and energy research, it is less commonly used in chemical synthesis.
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