Nitro Lignin-Derived Nitrogen-Doped Carbon as an Efficient and Sustainable Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction.

The use of lignin as a precursor for the synthesis of materials is nowadays considered very interesting from a sustainability standpoint. Here we illustrate the synthesis of a micro-, meso-, and macroporous nitrogen-doped carbon (NDC) using lignin extracted from beech wood via alkaline hydrothermal treatment and successively functionalized via aromatic nitration. The so obtained material is thus carbonized in the eutectic salt melt KCl/ZnCl2. The final NDC shows an excellent activity as electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction.

RAFT-derived polymer-drug conjugates: poly(hydroxypropyl methacrylamide) (HPMA)-7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN-38) conjugates.

A series of well-defined polymer-drug conjugates were prepared in order to modify the physical properties of a known cytotoxic drug, 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN-38), the active metabolite of irinotecan (CPT-11). Reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation was used to covalently and site-specifically append a defined N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA) polymer to SN-38 using a graft-from process. These poly-HPMA-SN-38 conjugates displayed excellent aqueous solubility and stability, whilst retaining the cytotoxic activity of the parent SN-38. In vitro co-culture assays containing both cancer and noncancer cell lines demonstrated the specificity of RAFT-derived poly-HPMA-SN-38 conjugates for cancerous cells. The concept of post-optimisation modification of small-molecule drugs through a graft-from polymer conjugation method is introduced.