The main method of steel manufacturing is oxygen-converter process, when oxygen is blown through the molten cast iron resulting in receiving steel and converter gas containing carbon monoxide (CO). The latter is an efficient deoxidising agent for chemical reactions; however, expensive purification of converter gas is required to receive this agent. Researchers from the Institute of organic element compounds of RAS tried to circumvent these restrictions: they found the way to use the converter gas directly using it to remove the oxygen atoms from nitro-compounds and carboxylic acids. It resulted in generating sustainable amide bond similar to the one joining amino-acids in natural proteins.
This was how the researchers received acetaminophen – a broadly known anti-febrile drug, using water as solvent and easily accessible catalysts to facilitate the reaction: during the pilot test, the mass of the received medication constituted 99% of the preliminary estimates. Using the same method, the researchers received 14 more compounds including propanil (a broadly used contact herbicide) and butenafine (one of the anti-fungal drugs).
“We have been working in the sphere of organic synthesis for many years. We often face the situations, when to perform a certain reaction you need to produce special agents for it in advance, e.g., complexes-hydrides. This research demonstrated that even for rather complex reactions you may use not only high-purity special-purpose agents, but some compounds generated by our plants as by-products in huge amounts. We hope that our method will help not only in making the production of important pharmaceutical substances cheaper, but to a certain degree in shifting the focus of chemists to developing the simplest systems allowing for efficient synthesising valuable organic compounds”, Russian Science Foundation is citing Oleg Afanasyev, the candidate of chemical sciences.
