Ni-Catalyzed Enantioselective Desymmetrization: Development of Divergent Acyl and Decarbonylative Cross-Coupling Reactions.

Ni-catalyzed asymmetric reductive cross-coupling reactions provide rapid and modular access to enantioenriched building blocks from simple electrophile precursors. Reductive coupling reactions that can diverge through a common organometallic intermediate to two distinct families of enantioenriched products are particularly versatile but underdeveloped. Here, we describe the development of a bis(oxazoline) ligand that enables the desymmetrization of -anhydrides.

Theoretical Prediction of the Creation and Observation of a Ghost Trilobite Chemical Bond.

The "trilobite"-type of molecule, predicted in 2000 and observed experimentally in 2015, arises when a Rydberg electron exerts a weak attractive force on a neutral ground state atom. Such molecules have bond lengths exceeding 100 nm. The ultralong-range chemical bond between the two atoms is a nonperturbative linear combination of the many degenerate electronic states associated with high principal quantum numbers, and the resulting electron probability distribution closely resembles a fossil trilobite from antiquity.