Fuel ethanol production from corn fiber current status and technical prospects

Corn fiber, which consists of about 20% starch, 14% cellulose, and 35% hemicellulose, has the potential to serve as a low cost feedstock for production of fuel ethanol. Currently, the use of corn fiber to produce fuel ethanol faces significant technical and economic challenges. Its success depends largely on the development of environmentally friendly pretreatment procedures, highly effective enzyme systems for conversion of pretreated corn fiber to fermentable sugars, and efficient microorganisms to convert multiple sugars to ethanol. Several promising pretreatment and enzymatic processes for conversion of corn fiber cellulose, hemicellulose, and remaining starch to fermentable sugars were evaluated. These hydrolyzates were then examined for ethanol production in bioreactors, using genetically modified bacteria and yeast. Several novel enzymes were also developed for use in pretreated corn fiber saccharification. Names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable.     

A Review of the Synthesis and Utility of Some Lipopathic Permanganate Oxidants

Permanganate, the versatile oxidizing agent, has limited solubility in non-polar media, which limits its use for oxidation of organic substrate in the non-aqueous media. But the combination of PTCs with permanganate makes it mild, selective and lipopathic. These lipopathic oxidants are useful for many important organic transformations. In this communication, we have presented the synthesis and utility of some selected lipopathic permanganate oxidants, which oxidize many functional groups, including alcohol, aldehyde, ether, alkane, alkene, alkyne, and oxime and have use in many synthetic organic procedures with chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity.     

High-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for simultaneous detection of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 in Indian medicinal herbs using QuEChERS-based extraction procedure

Since the discovery of aflatoxins (AFs) in the 1960s, much research has focused on detecting the toxins in contaminated food and feedstuffs. But the quality determination in medicinal plant matrices with respect to AFs is scare. Hence, a simple, accurate and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) method was developed for simultaneous determination of AFs AFB₁, AFB₂, AFG₁ and AFG₂ in two Indian popular medicinal herbs i.e. senna (Cassia angustifolia) and kalmegh (Andrographis paniculata). AFs have been extracted from herb matrix using a QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe)-based extraction procedure followed by applying primary secondary amine and C18 for further clean-up step and then were quantified under the multiple reaction monitoring together with positive ionisation modes. Matrix-matched calibration was used for quantification in order to reduce the matrix effect. Validation of the method was carried out in herbs by recovery experiments. Recoveries of the spiked samples were in the range of 61.9–111.5% with an inter-day and intraday relative standard deviation lower than 20.0%. Limits of detection and quantification ranged from 0.41 to 0.95 ng mL^?1 and 1.2 to 3.8 μg kg^?1, respectively. The expanded uncertainty of the method was <21% for all the toxins in both the herbs. Finally, the proposed method was successfully applied to determine AF residues in real field samples of senna and kalmegh obtained from different locations in India.     

Photoluminescence and enhanced visible light driven photocatalysis studies of MoO3·CuO·ZnO nanocomposite

Research on Chemical Intermediates - A trimetallic, MoO3·CuO·ZnO nanocomposite was synthesized by co-precipitation&nbsp;method. The nanocomposite was characterized by X-ray...     

Exploring in house glutamate inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinase-2 through validated robust chemico-biological quantitative approaches

Structural Chemistry - Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) is established as one of the most important metalloenzymes for targeting cancer. However, homologous MMP-9 of the gelatinase family is...     

In memory of Prof. Venkataraman: Recent advances in the synthetic methodologies of flavones

Flavones are present in a variety of medicines and natural products and are important structural motif due to their unique mode of physiological action. Hence the structural importance of flavone moiety has elicited a great deal of interest in the field of organic synthesis and chemical biology to develop some new and improved synthesis of this molecular skeleton. Herein, we have described an up to date overview on the recent advances in the diverse synthetic methodologies of flavones. The review covers the basic conceptual and practical catalytic synthesis like carbonylative annulation, cyclodehydration, Suzuki Miyaura coupling, Heck coupling, green methodologies, metal catalyzed reactions, organocatalytic transformations, microwave irradiation, etc. which are significant for constructing flavone skeleton. This review will satisfy the expectations of readers who are interested in the development of the field and looking for an update. It will stimulate researchers to develop new and creative synthetic access to this heterocyclic system, which will be instrumental in the advancement of flavone chemistry.     

Benzocycloenones as dienophiles. Stereocontrolled synthesis of benzohydropentalene and benzohydroazulene

A convenient route for the synthesis of benzohydropentalene $\text{14}$ and benzohydroazulenes $\text{21}$ and $\text{22}$ is described for entry into a number of tri- and tetracyclic terpenoids.