TiO 2 nanoparticles have been prepared by amine assisted sol-gel precipitation of Ti 4+ aqueous solutions and further hydrothermal treatment. The effect of different starting acidic solution (nitric, chlorhydric and acetic acids) as well as the addition of triethylamine (TEA) at different pH has been widely investigated. It has been stated that different amounts of TEA could have interesting effects upon hydrothermal treatment. Surface and morphological features significantly differ from TiO 2 prepared using different synthetic route. In all cases, amine precipitated TiO 2 obtained exhibit high conversion values for phenol photo-oxidation reaction, being in certain conditions higher than that exhibited by TiO 2 Degussa P25. The precipitation of the acetic acidified solution leads to high surface area values and well crystallized anatase with small crystallite size. In addition, this set of catalysts show the cleanest surface after the hydrothermal treatment. The conjunction of these features would be the characteristic features responsible of the best photocatalytic activity observed.

[reaction: see text] A two-step protection of 1,2-diols as the corresponding o-xylylene cyclic ethers, involving an intramolecular ring-closing O-benzylation reaction, has been developed to overcome the problems associated to regioselective benzylation reactions. The strategy has been applied to the high-yielding synthesis of the pyrrolidine glycosidase inhibitors DMDP and DGDP.