A chemistry collaboration led to a creative way to put carbon dioxide to good -- and even healthy -- use: by incorporating it, via electrosynthesis, into a series of organic molecules that are vital to pharmaceutical development.
In the process, the team made an innovative discovery. By changing the type of electrochemical reactor, they could produce two completely different products, both of which are useful in medicinal chemistry.
The team's paper, "Electrochemical Reactor Dictates Site Selectivity in N-Heteroarene Carboxylations," published Jan 5 in Nature. The paper's co-lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Peng Yu and Wen Zhang, and Guo-Quan Sun of Sichuan University in China.
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