A rapidly expanding area of inquiry is the use of plant biomass for the industrial production of organic compounds for which there is high demand. This interest is fuelled largely by the anticipated decline in the supply of petroleum, and the inevitable concomitant rise in cost. Over the past 30 years, significant progress has been made toward the large-scale conversion of plant biomass to common chemicals such as methanol, ethanol, glycerol, substituted furans, and carboxylic acids. However, examination of the list of top production organic chemicals reveals numerous opportunities for future development, including simple halocarbons, alkenes and arenes. Progress toward efficient and economical production of these challenging targets from biomass has recently been reported, and future success is likely to continue through academic and industrial collaboration.

Domino reactions were designed to allow the byproduct of an upstream reaction to be internally recycled to catalyze a downstream reaction in a one-pot tandem sequence. Nitroarene reduction by In(0) generates an amine and In (III) byproducts. Addition of aldehyde followed by Danishefsky's diene or silyl ketene acetal provides access to dihydropyridin-4-ones or beta-amino esters, respectively, in yields that are comparable or superior to the reported stepwise reactions.

trans ‐4‐Methyl‐3‐buten‐2‐one 1,3, 5‐Triacetylbenzene

Groundwater contamination due to mining, industrial and agricultural activities is a source of concern, especially with the advent of more stringent environmental legislation. Water sources in South Africa are multi-functional as the same water used in industrial processes is also used in agriculture.[1] Mining activities in the Northern Cape of South Africa, is largely as a result of manganese mining where Mn (II) and Fe (II) is removed. The treatment of the effluent discharged to the environment is therefore seen as a priority.Biosorption has proven to be a viable alternative to the use of conventional heavy metal removal methods. [2, 3] The re-usability of the biomaterial was investigated using a batch system. The biomaterial was contacted with Mn (II) sulfate, after which the supernatant was analysed for metal content. The biosorbent was then dried and desorbed using HCl. This process was repeated 3 times to investigate whether the biomaterial deteriorated and whether the biosorption process was affected by multiple use of the same biomaterial. The results showed that the biosorption capacity reduced with each successive use of the biomaterial.

Review: ca. 100 refs.