Celebrating the 130th anniversary of Wuhan University

Lin Zhuang, Qiu Wang, Aiwen Lei and Qianghui Zhou introduce the Chemical Science and Green Chemistry joint themed collection celebrating the 130th Anniversary of Wuhan University.


Sustainable and green chemistry
Qixue Qin and Ning Jiao and coworkers, present a novel and efficient approach for the oxidative rearrangement of cyclobutenones, by utilizing I 2 as a catalyst and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a greener oxidant and source of oxygen (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3GC01756G).Si-Shun Yan, Yong-Yuan Gui and Da-Gang Yu, and coworkers, report a photocatalytic deuorocarboxylation using formate salts as both a reductant and a carbon dioxide source.This transition metal-free strategy provides a mild, efficient, and sustainable approach for accessing a series of valuable aryl acetic acids, such as urbiprofen (https:// doi.org/10.1039/D3GC01299A).
Liyan Song, Ran Lin and Rongbiao Tong and coworkers, report the inaugural green oxidation of amides and aldehydes (alongside NaN 3 ) using oxone and halide to yield the N-halo amides and acyl azides, the key intermediates for Hofmann and Curtius rearrangements

Aiwen Lei
Aiwen Lei is a professor at Wuhan University, and associate editor for the journal Green Chemistry.Aiwen Lei obtained his PhD (2000)

Electrochemical energy storage and conversion
Li Xiao, Lin Zhuang and Héctor D. Abruña, and co-workers, found that the degradation of the ionomer in an anion exchange membrane fuel cell (AEMFC) is considerably more severe than that of the membrane under realistic operation (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC03649A).Wei Luo and co-workers, found that a sulphate functionalized Ru catalyst (Ru-SO 4 ) exhibited remarkable electrocatalytic performance and stability toward alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC02144K).Huayi Yin and coworkers, systematically summarize the recycling methods using salts as agents to enable the conversion of cathode materials of spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), in a review article (https://doi.org/10.1039/D2GC04620B).Jun Huang and Shengli Chen and co-workers, reveal that electrostatic interactions play a decisive role in coupled charge transfer and Li+ segregation in the LiFePO 4 cathode material (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC04297A).Jiangfeng Qian and coworkers, propose a phenazine-mediated chemical sodiation strategy to precisely synthesize a Na-enriched Na 4 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 cathode under the guidance of a redoxpotential-matching principle, and significantly boost the energy density of sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) (https:// doi.org/10.1039/D3SC03498D).Xiangjun Pu, Mingyue Ding and Zhongxue Chen and coworkers, propose deltaoxovanadium phosphate as the cathode material for aqueous zinc-ion batteries (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC02382F).Lianhuan Han and co-workers, demonstrate a controllable electrochemical approach to modulate the defect density and tune the electrochemical activity of single-layer graphene (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC03920J).

Synthesis and studies of functional molecules: impacts on biology, drug discovery, and the environment
In molecular imaging, recognition elements for various targets play a crucial role in high-performance imaging.The review by Bingqian Lin and coworkers, provide a comprehensive summary of engineered aptamers for molecular imaging, including various design strategies, a wide range of targets ranging from cell membrane proteins, nucleic acids, organelles, metabolites, to metal ions, as well as different imaging modalities (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC03989G).In an effort to develop dehydroalanine (Dha)-modied strategies, Yanmei Li and colleagues, report a photoinitiated 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction between Dha and 2,5-diaryl tetrazoles (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC02818F).The reaction they worked on exhibited complete site-specicity in the modication of thiostrepton in high yields, providing a chemoselective approach for precise functionalization of proteins.With uorogenic properties, the reported photo-controllable methodology could be applied to live cell imaging, thus expanding the practicality of the Dha modication methodology.Yanfeng Dang, Xiu-Qin Dong and Chun-Jiang Wang and coworkers, report a new strategy that enables, for the rst time, the atroposelective synthesis of axially chiral N,N ′ -pyrrolylindoles via de novo indole formation catalyzed by chiral phosphoric acid (CPA).This work also provides a preliminary investigation on the biological activity of these N,N ′ -pyrrolylindoles and their low IC 50 value toward different cancer cell lines suggests their encouraging potentials in drug discovery (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC03686C).Xiaoguang Lei and coworkers, disclose the rst total syntheses of a family of alkaloids, including picrasidines G, S, R, and T and related derivatives, in a concise manner.The success of this work is attributed to an innovative late-stage aza-[4 + 2] cycloaddition, which also provides synthetic evidence for the proposed biosynthetic pathway of ITHQtype bis-b-carboline alkaloids that have appealing biological activities (https:// doi.org/10.1039/D3SC03722C).Twisted polyarenes with persistent chirality are desirable but their synthesis has remained a challenge.Zhe Sun and Jishan Wu and coworkers, report highly twisted 1,2:8,9-dibenzozethrene and its vertically fused dimers and trimers by a "one-pot" nickel-catalyzed cyclooligomerization reaction.This study also offers an efficient way to access highly twisted polyarenes with enantiomers that can be separated with either le-handed or right-handed helicity (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC02285D).Radiocesium ions are a major species in radioactive wastewater, therefore, efficient treatment and isolation methods for Cs ions are highly sought.Xiaodong Shi and coworkers, report the preparation of a covalently tethered isoguanosine self-assembled pentamer that could selectively extract Cs ions with good reusability.This new extractor served as a new platform for the treatment of radiocesium in an environmentally benign manner (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3GC02932H).
This collection continues to amass new and exciting research as more articles are being accepted from WHU researchers and associates.We wish WHU a happy anniversary and hope our readers have a good time reading the collection.
Department ofChemistry at Duke University.The research of the Wang group centers on developing new methods and novel imaging strategies to advance the synthesis and biological studies of nitrogencontaining bioactive molecules and imaging tools, especially those related to cancer and neurodegenerative disease.biology, etc., encompassing all areas of chemistry.It is with pleasure to feature some of the articles from the collection in this editorial.
Professor James P. Collman as a research associate.He then became a full professor (2005) at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, China.His research focuses on novel approaches and understanding bond formation reactions.