Molecule matters The Quinine story: A 100-year saga

Ever since its isolation in 1820, Quinine has played a crucial role in the development of organic chemistry, chemical industry and modern medicine. The total synthesis of quinine, widely regarded as anevent of epochal importancewas claimed by Woodward and Doering in 1945. This work, however, heavily relied on unsubstantiated literature reports and it appears that Woodward’s work fell short of a total synthesis of quinine. The first stereoselective total synthesis of quinine was accomplished only in 2001, by Stork, who incidentally is the originator of the concept of stereoselectivity in total synthesis. Naturally, this work has been attested as a landmark in organic synthesis by leaders in the field.     

Molecule matters Dinitrogen

Dinitrogen (N₂) is a very stable and inert molecule due to the formation of a triple bond between the two atoms. Surprisingly isoelectronic molecules are quite reactive making dinitrogen very useful and unique.     

Nanomaterials for hydrogen storage The van’t Hoff connection

After highlighting the fundamental contributions of van’t Hoff to the emergence of modern physical chemistry, we bring out the relevance of his ideas to a problem of great contemporary interest—storageof hydrogen in nanomaterials.     

An elegant example of chemoselective reaction The preparation of sulfonamide drugs

In a chemoselective reaction, one of the functional groups in the reactant molecule is selectively attacked by a reagent. The present article describes this principle by demonstrating that careful alkaline hydrolysis of N¹,N⁴-diacetylsulfanilamide (7) removes only the N⁴-acetyl group from it leaving the N¹-acetyl group intact to yield N¹-acetylsulfanilamide (8).     

Silicon photonics Silicon Raman lasers

The increased use of optoelectronic devicessuch as TV screens and computer monitors in everyday life, calls for a material on which integration of all circuits may be performed. Silicon, the most widely used material in electronics, has limited application in optoelectronics due to its poor light emission property. In this article, the need for silicon photonics in present day ICs, and communication, the reason for its inefficient light emission, and recent breakthrough in the form of Si Raman laser are discussed.     

Fire synthesis Preparation of alumina products

The novel ‘solution combustion method’ or ‘fire synthesis’ has been used to make high temperature synthesised ceramic materials. The process, which can be initiated at low temperature, is self-propagating and gas-producing. Fine-particle alumina and its related oxides can be easily prepared in bulk by the redox mixture method.     

The legacy of Nikola Tesla The AC system that he helped to usher in

Alternating Current (AC) is used all over the world today. In India we use AC at 50 Hz (cycles per second) and in USA and Canada at 60 Hz. During the latter part of the 19th century, even during the early part of the 20th century, Direct Current or DC was widely used. Had we continued with DC, electricity would not have been as widely available as it is today and its use would have been cumbersome, costly and severely restricted. We owe it mainly to the Serbian genius Nikola Tesla that electricity has reached almost every nook and corner of most continents.