Disclosed are a hollow mesoporous organic silica nano/microparticle having metal particles deposited thereon, and a method for preparing the same of the present disclosure. The method may prepare a spherical nanoparticle by coating a porous organic silica layer on an inorganic silica particle having the metal particles deposited thereon and via selective etching of the layer. In addition, two or more types of metals pre-synthesized together with a magnetic particle, or different shapes of metals may be deposited on the nanoparticle at a target concentration. Thus, the nano/microparticle may be used for a drug delivery matrix, a catalyst, and a photothermal effect.

The present disclosure discusses (i) a compound having a chemical formula according to Formula (I), or its enantiomer; and (ii) a compound that is reactive with a hydride to produce a compound having a chemical formula according to Formula (I), or its enantiomer. Formula (I) is: Formula (I) where R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 are H, optionally substituted C.sub.1-C.sub.3 alkyl, or linked together to form an optionally substituted C.sub.3 or C.sub.4 alkyl group; R.sub.3 and R.sub.3′ are H; R.sub.4 and R.sub.4′ are the same, and are optionally substituted C.sub.1-C.sub.6 alkyl; and R.sub.5 and R.sub.5′ are the same, and are optionally substituted aryl or heteroaryl. In some examples, R4 and R5 are linked, and R.sub.4′ and R.sub.5′ are linked, where both linking groups are the same. The present disclosure also discusses methods of asymmetric reduction of an imine, and methods of forming the catalysts and pre-catalysts. ##STR00001##

A method for preparing formamide compounds via hydrogenation of carbon dioxide catalyzed by porous materials includes the following steps: by taking porous organometallic polymers as catalysts, reacting amine compounds with carbon dioxide and hydrogen under an air atmosphere to prepare formamide compounds. The method has the advantages of high reaction efficiency, good selectivity, mild conditions, economy, environmental protection, and simple operation. The catalysts are solid organometallic polymers with large specific surface area, strong carbon dioxide adsorption, hierarchical pore distribution, and uniformly dispersed metal centers. They are designed and synthesized as the reaction catalysts by changing the proportion of the cross-linked comonomer. The catalysts can be especially used for catalytic synthesis of fine chemical N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) without addition of any additional solvent, alkali, or other additives, which is convenient for separation and purification of DMF.

The invention relates to a novel process for converting a feedstock comprising at least one sugar into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, wherein said feedstock is brought into contact with one or more organic dehydration catalysts and one or more chloride sources in the presence of at least one aprotic polar solvent alone or as a mixture, at a temperature of between 30° C. and 200° C., and at a pressure of between 0.1 MPa and 10 MPa.

Disclosed is catalyst composition, a process for preparing the catalyst composition, and a use of the catalyst composition. The catalyst composition comprises 1 wt % to 4 wt % of free azacarbene, 1 wt % to 2 wt % of azacarbene iron, 15 wt % to 30 wt % of a phase transfer catalyst, 1 wt % to 5 wt % of a hydrogen donor, 5 wt % to 10 wt % of phosphoric acid, 0.5 wt % to 1 wt % of emulsifier, with the rest being solvent. This disclosure also provides a process for preparing the catalyst composition, comprising: mixing the free azacarbene and the azacarbene iron with the solvent according to a ratio, then adding and mixing the phase transfer catalyst and the hydrogen donor, then adding and mixing the phosphoric acid and the emulsifier to obtain the catalyst composition. The beneficial effect of this disclosure is: only less azacarbene iron and free azacarbene are needed to achieve rapid and efficient viscosity reduction of heavy oil.

A method for making a fuel includes reacting a conjugated diene or a mixture of conjugated dienes with a catalyst selected from the group consisting of a low valent iron catalyst stabilized with a pyridineimine ligand, an iron precatalyst coordinated to the pyridineimine ligand that is activated with a reducing agent, a low oxidation state Fe complex stabilized with a pyridineimine ligand and a coordinating ligand, and combinations thereof, thereby forming a substituted cyclooctadiene. The substituted cyclooctadiene is then hydrogenated, thereby forming cyclooctane fuel.

A facile strategy is used to synthesize the gold nanoparticles via a green and simple approach showing self-alignment on the assembled nanofibers of ultrashort oligopeptides as a composite material. A photochemical reduction method is used, without requiring any external chemical reagents for the reduction of gold ions and producing gold nanoparticles of size ca. 5 nm under mild UV light exposure. The specific arrangement of gold nanoparticles on peptide nanofibers may indicate electrostatic interactions of two components and interactions with the amino group of the peptide building block. The gold-peptide nanoparticle composites show the ability as a catalyst to degradation of environmental pollutant p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol, and the reaction rate constant for catalysis is 0.057 min.sup.1 at a 50-fold dilute sample of 2 mg/mL and 0.72 mM gold concentration in the composites. This colloidal strategy helps researchers to fabricate the metalized bioorganic composites for biomedical and bio-catalysis applications.

This disclosure relates to synthetic coupling methods using catalytic molecules. In certain embodiments, the catalytic molecules comprise heterocyclic thiolamide, S-acylthiosalicylamide, disulfide, selenium containing heterocycle, diselenide compound, ditelluride compound or tellurium containing heterocycle. Catalytic molecules disclosed herein are useful as catalysts in the transformation of hydroxy group containing compounds to amides, esters, ketones, and other carbon to heteroatom or carbon to carbon transformations

Metal-organic framework (MOFs) compositions based on postsynthetic metalation of secondary building unit (SBU) terminal or bridging OH or OH.sub.2 groups with metal precursors or other post-synthetic manipulations are described. The MOFs provide a versatile family of recyclable and reusable single-site solid catalysts for catalyzing a variety of asymmetric organic transformations, including the regioselective boryiation and siiylation of benzyiic CH bonds, the hydrogenation of aikenes, imines, carbonyls, nitroarenes, and heterocycles, hydroboration, hydrophosphination, and cyclization reactions. The solid catalysts can also be integrated into a flow reactor or a supercritical fluid reactor.

Disclosed is a catalytic test paper prepared by compositing metal particle-embedded bacterial cellulose with plant fibers, and a preparation method therefor. Hydroxyl groups of bacterial cellulose are bonded with a nitrogen-containing or phosphorus-containing organic small molecule compound. By means of a chelation between a nitrogen or phosphorus atom with a metal, transition metal ions are adsorbed to a nanoporous surface of bacterial cellulose, and the transition metal ions are reduced in situ to obtain bacterial cellulose embedded with metal nanoparticles. The bacterial cellulose is composited with the plant fiber, and the catalytic test paper is prepared by a papermaking method. The catalytic test paper has the advantages of convenient use and recovery, high reusability, simple design, low manufacturing cost, higher catalytic efficiency, a green degradable support material, etc.