Chemical and electrochemical synthesis of quinoneimine n-oxides from indolinone-3-arylimino nitroxide radicals

Cellulose: To depolymerize… or not to?

Oxidation of the primary OH groups in cellulose is a pivotal reaction both at lab and industrial scale, leading to the value-added products, i.e. oxidized cellulose which have tremendous applications in medicine, pharmacy and hi-tech industry. Moreover, the introduction of carboxyl moieties creates prerequisites for further cellulose functionalization through covalent attachment or electrostatic interactions, being an essential achievement designed to boost the area of cellulose-based nanomaterials fabrication. Various methods for the cellulose oxidation have been developed in the course of time, aiming the selective conversion of the OH groups. These methods use: nitrogen dioxide in chloroform, alkali metal nitrites and nitrates, strong acids alone or in combination with permanganates or sodium nitrite, ozone, and sodium periodate or lead (IV) tetraacetate. In the case of the last two reagents, cellulose dialdehydes derivatives are formed, which are further oxidized by sodium chlorite or hydrogen peroxide to form dicarboxyl groups. A major improvement in the cellulose oxidation was represented by the introduction of the stable nitroxyl radicals, such as 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO). However, a major impediment for the researchers working in this area is related with the severe depolymerisation occurred during the TEMPO-mediated conversion of CH₂OH into COOH groups. On the other hand, the cellulose depolymerisation represent the key step, in the general effort of searching for alternative strategies to develop new renewable, carbon-neutral energy sources. In this connection, exploiting the biomass feed stocks to produce biofuel and other low molecular organic compounds, involves a high amount of research to improve the overall reaction conditions, limit the energy consumption, and to use benign reagents. This work is therefore focused on the parallelism between these two apparently antagonist processes involving cellulose, building a necessary bridge between them, thinking how the reported drawbacks of the TEMPO-mediated oxidation of cellulose are heading towards to the biomass valorisation, presenting why the apparently undesired side reactions could be turned into beneficial processes if they are correlated with the existing achievements of particular significance in the field of cellulose conversion into small organic compounds, aiming the general goal of pursuing for alternatives to replace the petroleum-based products in human life.

The reactivity of manganese dioxide towards different substrates in organic solvents

The diverse reactivity of MnO₂ in organic solvents was evidenced, its reduction potential being estimated as 0.90 V vs. NHE.

Comparison of antioxidant activity between aromatic indolinonic nitroxides and natural and synthetic antioxidants

In view of the possible employment of nitroxide compounds in various fields, it is important to know how they compare with other synthetic antioxidant compounds currently used in several industries and with naturally occurring antioxidants. To address this issue, the antioxidant activity of two aromatic indolinonic nitroxides synthesized by us was compared with both commercial phenolic antioxidants (BHT and BHA) and with natural phenolic antioxidants (alpha-hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, caffeic acid, alpha-tocopherol). DPPH radical scavenging ability and the inhibition of both lipid and protein oxidation induced by the peroxyl-radical generator, AAPH, were evaluated. The results obtained show that overall: (i) the reduced forms of the nitroxide compounds are better scavengers of DPPH radical than butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BLT) but less efficient than the natural compounds; (ii) the nitroxides inhibit both linolenic acid micelles and bovine serum albumin (BSA) oxidation to similar extents as most of the other compounds in a concentration-dependent fashion. Since the aromatic nitroxides tested in this study are less toxic than BHT, these compounds may be regarded as potential, alternative sources for several applications. The mechanisms underlying the antioxidant activity of nitroxides were further confirmed by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy experiments and macroscale reactions in the presence of radicals generated by thermolabile azo-compounds. Distribution coefficients in octanol/buffer of the nitroxides and the other compounds were also determined as a measure of lipophilicity.