A platinum-carbon electrocatalyst material comprising a carbon support having a minimum BET surface area of 1000 m.sup.2/g, a nitrogen content of at least 2.5 weight percent, which is present in the form of pyridine, pyridone or pyrrole, a phosphorous content of at least 3 weight percent, which is present in the form of phosphate and phosphonate, and a plurality of platinum nanoparticles dispersed on the carbon support having a maximum average particle diameter of 1.5 nm.

Chemical processes are disclosed that act to both regenerate and create new catalyst for iron salt catalyzed Kharasch coupling reactions during the process of creating halogenated hydrocarbons. Such processes include loading a reactor with a quantity of Fe(0) metal such as iron wire, supplying CCl.sub.4 to the reactor, supplying a phosphate compound to the reactor, supplying an alkene to the reactor, and supplying a carbonyl of Fe(0) to the reactor.

The invention relates to a method for the stereoselective preparation of compounds of formula (IV).

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A process for preparing diaryl sulfones, such as 4,4-dichlorodiphenylsulfone is disclosed. The process comprises contacting an aryl compound with sulfur trioxide to provide a benzene sulfonic acid. The benzene sulfonic acid is coupled to additional aryl compound in the presence of a catalyst. During the coupling step, the additional aryl compound is continuously added while water is removed.

A method for synthesizing (R)-()-1-((S)-2-diphosphino ferrocene)-ethyl-diphosphine by: 1) adding vinylferrocene, a chiral catalyst, and toluene to a first drying reactor; adding a phosphorus-hydrogen compound to the first drying reactor and allowing reactants in the first drying reactor to react; cooling the first drying reactor; adding water dropwise to the first drying reactor; extracting, drying, and recrystallizing a product to yield (R)-1-ferrocenylethyl-diphosphine; 2) adding the (R)-1-ferrocenylethyl-diphosphine and ether to a second drying reactor; adding a hexane solution including diethylzinc to the second drying reactor and allowing reactants in the second drying reactor to react; adding a phosphorus-chlorine compound dropwise to the second drying reactor, and heating and refluxing the reaction mixture in the second drying reactor; adding water to quench the reaction mixture in the second drying reactor; and extracting, drying, and recrystallizing the reaction mixture.

Described herein are methods for preparing chiral ?-amino acids using chiral phosphoric acids as catalysts. The disclosed methods can use amino-malonic acids as substrates to generate chiral amino acids with a variety of side chains in high optional purity (such as an ee value of at least 70%) and with a high yield (i.e., a yield of at least 80%, such as in a range from about 80% to about 99%), via an asymmetric decarboxylation reaction. The decarboxylation reaction of the methods is catalyzed by chiral phosphoric acids that can achieve a selective protonation during decarboxylation, which is considered one of the most difficult processes in asymmetric catalysis.

The present invention relates to a process for the asymmetric oxidation of nucleophilic organic compounds, particularly metal-free, with peroxide compounds in the presence of a chiral Brnsted acid catalyst. In one detail, the present invention relates to a process for enantioselective sulfoxidation of thiocompounds with peroxide compounds in the presence of a chiral imidodiphosphate catalyst. In another detail, the present invention relates to a process for enantioselective sulfoxidation of thiocompounds with peroxide compounds in the presence of a chiral phosphoric acid catalyst.

The present disclosure relates to a process of esterification in presence of a catalyst. The catalyst of the present disclosure is an aryloxy based phosphoric acid having general formula [{ArO}.sub.2P(O)OH] and is represented by the structure:

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wherein, Ar represents aryl compounds.

The process of esterification is carried out by the reaction of a carboxylic acid and an alcohol in a fluid medium in the presence of the aryloxy based phosphoric acid catalyst resulting in the corresponding ester. The process of the present disclosure is simple and results in a product having a comparatively higher purity.

Disclosed are a spiro-bisphosphorous compound, and a preparation and application thereof. The spiro-bisphosphorous compound is expressed in formula (I), (II) or (III). ##STR00001##

A liquid titanium-based catalyst and method for preparing polyester polymer thereof are disclosed herein. The catalyst is made by tetrabutyl titanate, 1-4 butanediol, phosphate ester, hydroxycarboxylic acid, TEOS, acetates of metal element through heating reactions in an appropriate amount of solvent. While the catalyst maintains a high activity, the synthetic slices have good hue, with high molecular weight, stable property, resistance to hydrolysis, moreover, the catalyst is a stable multicomponent liquid catalyst based on titanium, silicon. It can be directly added or diluted to add to the raw material ester or oligoester to be poly-condensed used for synthesis of polyesters which can be used in the production of fibers, engineering plastics, films, PET bottles, sheets and profiles, etc.