Hydrogenation of CO2 to Formic Acid with a Highly Active Ruthenium Acriphos Complex in DMSO and DMSO/Water.

The novel [Ru(Acriphos)(PPh3 )(Cl)(PhCO2 )] [1; Acriphos=4,5-bis(diphenylphosphino)acridine] is an excellent precatalyst for the hydrogenation of CO2 to give formic acid in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and DMSO/H2 O without the need for amine bases as co-reagents. Turnover numbers (TONs) of up to 4200 and turnover frequencies (TOFs) of up to 260 h(-1) were achieved, thus rendering 1 one of the most active catalysts for CO2 hydrogenations under additive-free conditions reported to date. The thermodynamic stabilization of the reaction product by the reaction medium, through hydrogen bonds between formic acid and clusters of solvent or water, were rationalized by DFT calculations. The relatively low final concentration of formic acid obtained experimentally under catalytic conditions (0.33 mol L(-1) ) was shown to be limited by product-dependent catalyst inhibition rather than thermodynamic limits, and could be overcome by addition of small amounts of acetate buffer, thus leading to a maximum concentration of free formic acid of 1.27 mol L(-1) , which corresponds to optimized values of TON=16×10(3) and TOFavg ≈10(3)  h(-1) .

Polymorphic enzymes, urinary bladder cancer risk, and structural change in the local industry.

In the 1990s, an uncommonly high percentage of glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1) negative bladder cancer cases (70%) was reported in the greater Dortmund area. The question arose as to whether this uncommonly high percentage of GSTM1 negative bladder cancer cases was due to environmental and/or occupational exposure decades ago. Thus, 15 years later, another study on bladder cancer was performed in the same area after the coal, iron, and steel industries had finally closed in the 1990s. In total 196 bladder cancer patients from the St.-Josefs-Hospital Dortmund-Hörde and 235 controls with benign urological diseases were assessed by questionnaire and genotyped for GSTM1, glutathione S-transferase T1 (GSTT1), and the N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) tag SNP rs1495741. The frequency of the GSTM1 negative genotype was 52% in bladder cancer cases and thus lower compared to a previous study performed from 1992 to 1995 in the same area (70%). NAT2 genotypes were distributed equally among cases and controls (63% slow acetylators). Fewer GSTT1 negative genotypes were present in cases (17%) than in controls (20%).