Prof. Ned Jackson's Article chosen for Highlighting in Nature Communications
Nature Communications Editors’ Highlights pages aim to showcase the 50 best papers recently published in an area, and they routinely replace papers as more great research is published there.
In the Jackson Group’s article entitled Skeletal Ni electrode-catalyzed C-O cleavage of diaryl ethers entails direct elimination via benzyne intermediates, Yuting Zhou (now a postdoc at Illinois) shows how electricity can catalytically break down diaryl ethers in warm aqueous solution at ambient pressures. These notoriously tough chemicals are widely found both in lignin (from biomass), and in human-made herbicide pollutants. Though focused on reaction development to form useful products, the study uncovered a surprising and novel path implying a benzyne intermediate on the catalytic nickel surface.
https://www.nature.com/collections/wdzvyhgxft