The Realm of Organic Synthesis

Truth be told, I have 3 blog entries sitting on my desktop, but so much has gone on in the past month or two, it’s been tough to keep up to date.  Thank you to whomever just posted a comment (KRP) the other day in response to my Facile Iodination rant from a few months back.  Ironically, I was just discussing this concept the other day with a friend of mine who’s currently searching for an ORP idea; I recommended devising a method using a low-valent heteroatom that would wash out on workup (specifically, sulfur).  At any rate, my recent commentator has provided me with a reference that bears mentioning (Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 2004, 25, 1143-1146).  The article features excellent yields in impressive times using cerium(III), microwave irradiation and sodium iodide as the halide source.  As someone who’s investigated green chemistry as a hobby (and also during my ORP), I’ll note that microwave chemistry still has a long way to go, but recent developments make the technology promising.  Since our group microwave is currently situated in the office side of the lab, and should probably be labeled as a biohazard given its current state, I’ll probably just stick to I2 and PPh3.

Our paper was submitted almost 2 weeks ago, and we’re hoping for a response from the editor by next week.  In actuality, the paper, itself, was finished 4 weeks ago, but we had significant problems with the template formatting.  As such, I became an instant expert using the style settings in Word.  I’ve also become addicted to using the editing characters.  At any rate, I’ll keep you up to speed with the (hopeful) success of the paper.