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Organic chemistry

Nickel steps towards selectivity

Nature volume 545, pages 35–36 (2017)Cite this article

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Hydrocarbons called alkenes are isolated from petroleum as mixtures of isomers, often making it hard to use them as reagents for synthesis. A reaction involving a migrating nickel atom offers a possible solution. See Letter p.84

On page 84, Juliá-Hernández and co-workers1 report a remarkable feat of chemical selectivity: a process that converts isomeric mixtures of compounds known as alkenes into single fatty acids, by reacting them with the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The process not only overcomes a problem that has long hampered the chemical processing of petroleum-derived alkenes, but also might have many applications — fatty acids are crucial ingredients in products such as rubber, soaps and plastics, and it is estimated2 that they will have a global market value of US$20 billion by 2023.

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Figure 1: Synthesis of single fatty acids from mixtures of isomeric alkenes.

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References

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  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1EW, UK

    Matthew Gaunt & Patrick Williamson

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  1. Matthew Gaunt
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  2. Patrick Williamson
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Correspondence to Matthew Gaunt.

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Gaunt, M., Williamson, P. Nickel steps towards selectivity. Nature 545, 35–36 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/545035a

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