The tris(acetylacetonato)rhodium(III) catalyst is shown to be a versatile catalyst in the presence of DABCO (1,4‐diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane) as ligand for the α‐alkylation of ketones followed by transfer hydrogenation, for the one‐pot β‐alkylation of secondary alcohols with primary alcohols and for the alkylation of aromatic amines in the presence of an inorganic base in toluene.

Direct ortho C–H monoarylation of 2-phenylpyridine and 1-phenyl-1H-pyrazole and its derivatives via a Ru catalysed reaction using catalytic amount of Phl(OCOCF3)2 as a hyper-valent iodine oxidant with arylboronic acids is presented.

Two spectrophotometric methods have been developed for the determination of thiols by use of two pairs of reagents, p-aminophenol (PAP) -Fe(lll) for cysteine, cystarnine hydrochloride, glutathione, P-mercaptopropionic acid, P-mercaptoethanol, thioglycolic acid, thiomalic acid and thiosalicylic acid and Metol [p-(methy1amino)phenol sulphate] -Fe(l1l) for the above plus p-aminothiophenol, o-aminothiophenol and thiobarbituric acid. The methods are simple, sensitive, reproducible and accurate to within ?1.5% and have been applied to the assay of cystine after reduction and cystine in groundnut protein.

The easy to prepare dimeric bis(μ-iodo)bis[(−)-sparteine]dicopper ([CuI{(−)-spa}]2 complex) is shown to be versatile catalyst for O-arylation and O-alkylation with various aryl halides with phenols and aliphatic alcohols respectively, including less reactive aryl chlorides, such as chlorobenzene under mild conditions.

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