The addition of ferulic acid to wheat flour dough caused the inhibition of the yeast, which resulted in decreased bread volume. That effect could be avoid by the esterification of ferulic acid with poly(ethylene glycol).

An efficient and highly selective synthesis of vinyl esters was developed that employed carboxylic acids and terminal alkynes as reagents, and novel tethered (η 1 :η 6 -phosphanoarene)ruthenium complexes as catalyst precursors. With these catalyst systems, the reactions were somewhat slower than when using the best catalysts reported to date, but the selectivities were excellent with up to 98 % of the Markovnikov isomer. In addition, with a turnover number (TON) of 5000, these catalysts greatly outperformed their competitors. Minute amounts of water had a beneficial impact on the reaction

Two p-cymene-ruthenium complexes 1 and 2 were isolated in high yields by treating the [RuCl 2 (p-cymene)] 2 dimer with new hybrid phosphane-or NHC-linked diene ligands. Both complexes were fully characterized by NMR spectroscopy, and the molecular structure of the ruthenium-p-cymene complex 1, containing the phosphane-diene ligand system,

Since the first reports on the use of microwave irradiation to accelerate organic chemical transformations, a plethora of papers has been published in this field. In most examples, microwave heating has been shown to dramatically reduce reaction times, increase product yields, and enhance product purity by reducing unwanted side reactions compared with conventional heating methods. The present contribution aims at illustrating the advantages of this technology in homogeneous catalysis by ruthenium complexes and, when data are available, at comparing microwave-heated and conventionally heated experiments. Selected examples refer to olefin metathesis, isomerization reactions, 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions, atom transfer radical reactions, transfer hydrogenation reactions, and H/D exchange reactions.