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You may not be interested in hydrogenation, but hydrogenation is interested in you: it feeds you. The metal-catalyzed hydrogenation of vegetable oils is big business. You may have gotten away from trans-fats, but are you free of cis-fats? How about saturated fats? The food industry uses hydrogen and metals like nickel to hydrogenate food stuffs. And then there is the "hydrogenation" of nitrogen to make fertilizer.
What these guys in London did (never mind what they wear) is remarkable because they use hydrogen (H2) to make alcohols (top right) from ketones (top left). They use only the atoms C, H, O, B, and F, spatially arranged as shown. No metals.
Nature has little use for H2 which is the simplest molecule. Very little H2 even exists on earth. There is a class of enzymes called hydrogenases, but guess what? They use metals to activate H2. So this work goes above and beyond Nature itself.
15 comments:
(never mind what they wear)
Now that you mentioned it, as a woman who thinks of little else, I need to know.
ok ok... So is it better to make these products without metals? Are we killing ourselves? What do I need to remove from my diet this week to save myself?
Heavy metals are dangerous (as a generalization) but there are a number of other metals that are crucial for normal physiological function -- the most notable of which would be iron (in hemoglobin). Many enzymes use metals as cofactors. Even the very important magnesium is technically a metal. And vitamin B12 has cobalt in it.
Forgive me for finding the cyclic ether and fluorinated triphenyl borate more interesting than the products and reactants, Chickie. Symmetry and pictures are fun!
I attempt to stay away from products that contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils.
Fake butters, store bought cookies and crackers etc..
I love saltine crackers, but I only buy the Whole Foods brand. No hydrogenated oils.
Is that smart? or pointless? Regular saltines with hydrogenated oils taste better. or is that just taste bud conditioning and mass manipulation by the hydrogenated oil industry?
Forgive me for finding the cyclic ether and fluorinated triphenyl borate more interesting than the products and reactants, Chickie.
That part is the "active site." It's kind of a heterolytic cleavage of H2: The borane is a Lewis acid and polarizes the electrons of H2, drawing them towards the B, making the hydrogens more acidic. A proton is plucked off by the cyclic ether (a weak base), leaving behind hydride.
The H2 activation step is by far the most novel aspect. H2 is actually quite chemically inert except around certain metals and of course plasmas (fire).
Is that smart? or pointless? Regular saltines with hydrogenated oils taste better. or is that just taste bud conditioning and mass manipulation by the hydrogenated oil industry?
I think there is very little evidence for metal poisoning from the food industry. Saturated fats (fully hydrogenated) do taste better -- mouth feel -- they add crispiness too. They are solids vs. liquids.
Trans fats are unwanted by-products of hydrogenating vegetable oils. They come not from hydrogenation process but rather from using metals as catalysts. The production of trans fats is what's called an isomerization process. Trans fats are made by unwanted rearrangement of cis ones. I know it sounds like gender-speak (cis/trans) but those words were co-opted by the LGBLT community.
The food industry is responding to the trans fat issue by retooling their processes.
H2 and O2 can coexist together indefinitely in the absence of a catalyst or spark.
Another side note is that the reverse process shown in the scheme, making ketones from carbohydrates was the first industrial fermentation process invented by Chaim Weizmann. The British need acetone to make the explosive cordite during WW I and Weizmann delivered.
Wartime exigencies drive more R&D than people are willing to give credit.
Saturated fats and cis-fats are better for you because your body actually has a way of metabolizing them. The trans-fats were what the industry had left over, figured they were more appealing due to low melting point (like oils) and tried to convince the country that they were good for them on that basis. Which they weren't. They were just a way of making money.
In general, something that doesn't exist in your body or that your body lacks a way of breaking down or ridding itself of is more likely to be medically dangerous. But of course that has nothing to do with whether an organic alcohol (or anything else) has a useful industrial application. They have and they still will. It's a separate issue.
LGBLT community
Lol. I see what you did there.
Some scientists say that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. Stupidity is more plentiful than hydrogen, that is the basic building block of the universe.
--Frank Zappa
I like large BLT's.
Melvin Gordon is the greatest player in college sports.
Gay marriage is global warming.
Dismiss at your peril obvious idiocy.
It is beautiful how precisely ugly some people want every aspect of humanity.
Not Hitler though.
Gay marriage folks though, sure. There is beauty there, on the ideal.
Maybe we all start being Catholic Don Colocho and William Frank Buckley Junior fans, in addition tou our Bronco and Buckey Badger fiefdoms, secured.
Good chance I sober up and the D.E.W. is done though too.
No metal, no life. More or less. However, for a sun, Iron is the the death sentence!!!
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