Kinetic resolution of N-aryl ß-amino alcohols via asymmetric aminations of anilines.

An efficient kinetic resolution of N-aryl ß-amino alcohols has been developed via asymmetric para-aminations of anilines with azodicarboxylates enabled by chiral phosphoric acid catalysis. Broad substrate scope and high kinetic resolution performances were afforded with this method. Control experiments supported the critical roles of the NH and OH group in these reactions.

Chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed stereodivergent synthesis of trisubstituted allenes and computational mechanistic studies.

Chiral molecules with multiple stereocenters are widely present in natural products and pharmaceuticals, whose absolute and relative configurations are both critically important for their physiological activities. In spite of the fact that a series of ingenious strategies have been developed for asymmetric diastereodivergent catalysis, most of these methods are limited to the divergent construction of point chirality. Here we report an enantioselective and diastereodivergent synthesis of trisubstituted allenes by asymmetric additions of oxazolones to activated 1,3-enynes enabled by chiral phosphoric acid (CPA) catalysis, where the divergence of the allenic axial stereogenicity is realized by modifications of CPA catalysts. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are performed to elucidate the origin of diastereodivergence by the stacking- and stagger-form in the transition state (TS) of allene formation step, as well as to disclose a Münchnone-type activation mode of oxazolones under Brønsted acid catalysis.

Role of a "surface wettability switch" in inter-fiber bonding properties.

The fiber surface wettability is one of the most important lignocellulosic fiber characteristics affecting the inter-fiber bonding properties of final bio-products. In this study, the surface wettability (evaluated by the surface free energy, surface lignin and surface charge) of mechanically refined fibers and the bonding properties of the fiber matrix (handsheets) were measured and correlated to each other. The results showed that the fiber surface charge increased from 48.38 mmol kg-1 to 60.38 mmol kg-1 and the surface lignin decreased from 87.1% to 77.5% during the fiber mechanical treatment, leading to the improvement of the fiber surface free energy from 46.63 mJ m-2 to 54.45 mJ m-2. As a result, the bonding strength index increased from 2.60 N m g-1 to 9.73 N m g-1 without significant loss of bulk properties. In a word, the fiber surface wettability could be adjusted to facilitate the inter-fiber bonding properties of the paper or paperboard products using lignin-rich fibers as raw materials.

Study on the sorption process of triclosan on cationic microfibrillated cellulose and its antibacterial activity.

Cationic microfibrillated cellulose (CMFC), as one kind of cellulose-based materials, is widely used in many fields. In this work, it was functionalized with a traditional antibacterial agent (triclosan, TCS). The sorption process of TCS onto CMFC was expressed by kinetic and isotherm models. The results showed that there was a high correlation coefficient (R(2)>0.9) in the pseudo-second-order model and the isotherm models, indicating that CMFC had a good sorption capacity for TCS. The sorption type was chemisorption, and the reaction power was electrostatic interactions. The antibacterial activity of the assembled TCS/CMFC compound was tested by disk diffusion method, and it was found a higher antibacterial activity than CMFC alone (bigger inhibition zone diameters). Further, the functionalized TCS/CMFC compound was used in the fiber network during handsheets making, and it had a higher antibacterial rate than TCS alone (increase by 45.1% against Escherichia coli and by 54.8% against Staphylococcus aureus, respectively).