A fully continuous process including an asymmetric hydrogenation reaction operating at 70 bar hydrogen, aqueous extraction, and crystallization was designed, developed, and demonstrated at pilot scale. This paper highlights safety, quality, and throughput advantages of the continuous reaction and separations unit operations. Production of 144 kg of product was accomplished in laboratory fume hoods and a laboratory hydrogenation bunker over two continuous campaigns. Maximum continuous flow vessel size in the lab hoods was 22 L glassware, and maximum plug flow tube reactor (PFR) size in the bunker was 73 L. The main safety advantages of running the hydrogenation reaction continuous rather than batch were that the flow reactor was smaller for the same throughput and, more importantly, the tubular hydrogenation reactor ran 95% liquid filled at steady state. Therefore, the amount of hydrogen in the reactor at any one time was less than that of batch. A two-stage mixed suspension–mixed product removal (MSMPR) cascade was used for continuous crystallization. Impurity rejection by continuous crystallization was superior to that by batch because scalable residence time and steady-state supersaturation enabled robust and repeatable control of enantiomer rejection in a kinetic regime, although this is a nonstandard approach, debatable as an impurity control strategy. The fully continuous wet-end process running in a laboratory infrastructure achieved the same weekly throughput that would be expected from traditional batch processing in a plant module with 400 L vessels.

Optimising the supported modes of atom or ion dispersal onto substrates, to synchronously integrate high reactivity and robust stability in catalytic conversion, is an important yet challenging area of research. Here, theoretical calculations first show that three-coordinated copper (Cu) sites have higher activity than four-, two- and one-coordinated sites. A site-selective etching method is then introduced to prepare a stacked-nanosheet metal–organic framework (MOF, CASFZU-1)-based catalyst with precisely controlled coordination number sites on its surface. The turnover frequency value of CASFZU-1 with three-coordinated Cu sites, for cycloaddition reaction of CO 2 with epoxides, greatly exceed those of other catalysts reported to date. Five successive catalytic cycles reveal the superior stability of CASFZU-1 in the stacked-nanosheet structure. This study could form a basis for the rational design and construction of highly efficient and robust catalysts in the field of single-atom or ion catalysis.

Tunable control over the functionalization of graphene is significantly important to manipulate its structure and optoelectronic properties. Yet the chemical inertness of this noble carbon material poses a particular challenge for its decoration without forcing reaction conditions. Here, a mild, operationally simple and controllable protocol is developed to synthesize hydroxylated graphene (HOG) from fluorinated graphene (FG). We successfully demonstrate that under designed alkali environment, fluorine atoms on graphene framework are programmably replaced by hydroxyl groups via a straightforward substitution reaction pathway. Element constituent analyses confirm that homogeneous C-O bonds are successfully grafted on graphene. Rather different from graphene oxide, the photoluminescence (PL) emission spectrum of the obtained HOG becomes split when excited with UV radiation. More interestingly, such transformation from FG facilitates highly tunable PL emission ranging from greenish white (0.343, 0.392) to deep blue (0.156, 0.094). Additionally, both experimental data and density function theory calculation indicate that the chemical functionalization induced structural rearrangement is more important than the chemical decoration itself in tuning the PL emission band tail and splitting energy gaps. This work not only presents a new way to effectively fabricate graphene derivatives with tunable PL performance, but also provides an enlightening insight into the PL origin of graphene related materials.

Recent developments in the field of superatom chemistry have brought forward various clusters or compounds exhibiting novel structures and special properties. By utilizing aromatic clusters as building blocks, a new class of aromatic superatom cations MLi n+1+ is proposed here. Theoretical investigations reveal that most of the M n− aromatic anions maintain their structural and electronic integrity and play the role of central core inside the MLi n+1 + cations. The studied cations feature low vertical electron affinities (EA vert ), large HOMO−LUMO gaps, and high thermodynamic stability with respect to loss of a Li + ion. Besides, two kinds of MLi n+1 −(super)halogen compounds have been theoretically constructed and characterized, by which the feasibility of using the aromatic MLi n+1 + cations as building blocks for the design of new superatom compounds is explored. The results presented in this work appear to show the existence of aromatic, and particularly organic, superatoms and may assist with further systematic researches on such species.