Current trends and prospects in catalytic upgrading of lignocellulosic biomass feedstock into ultrapure biofuels.

Eco-friendly renewable energy sources have recommended as fossil fuel alternatives in recent years to reduce environmental pollution and meet future energy demands in various sectors. As the largest source of renewable energy in the world, lignocellulosic biomass has received considerable interest from the scientific community to advance the fabrication of biofuels and ultrafine value-added chemicals. For example, biomass obtained from agricultural wastes could catalytically convert into furan derivatives.

Synthesis of selenopeptides: an alternative way of incorporating selenocystine.

Selenocysteine (Sec) residue cannot be directly attached to a peptide sequence unless the selenol form is protected beforehand and several problems have been reported in the preparation of Sec building blocks. In this article a series of selenocystine, the oxidized form of Sec, containing peptides has been synthesized using a new methodology, where Boc-NH-chloroalanine is coupled with methyl ester protected residues (Ala, Met, Phe) using DCC/HOBt as the coupling reagents providing di- and tripeptides. Further, the treatment of disodium diselenide with chloroalanine peptides (Boc-ClAla-Ala-OMe, Boc-ClAla-Met-OMe and Boc-ClAla-Ala-Phe-OMe) afforded the respective selenocystine-containing peptides (Boc-Sec-Ala-OMe, Boc-Sec-Met-OMe and Boc-Sec-Ala-Phe-OMe).