Carbon-hydrogen bond activation took a big step forward in 2000 when John F. Hartwig and coworkers reported an organometallic catalyst capable of directly converting normally unreactive alkanes into ...

Alkanes, or saturated hydrocarbons, are major constituents of natural gas and petroleum, but there are very few practical processes for converting them directly to more valuable products. The reason ...

The latest short science news items from C&EN. The researchers trigger the reaction with violet light. First, there is an electron transfer from an oxidant, a N-alkoxyphthalimide ester, to the ...

Natural gas—one of the planet's most abundant energy sources—is primarily composed of methane, ethane, and propane. While it ...