{"id":3489,"date":"2012-03-28T10:29:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T10:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/?p=3489"},"modified":"2012-03-29T01:57:02","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T01:57:02","slug":"element-of-the-month-counting-on-copper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2012\/03\/element-of-the-month-counting-on-copper.html","title":{"rendered":"Element of the month: Counting on copper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readers of this blog will be familiar with last year\u2019s essay competition<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 as Stuart mentioned here<\/a> a few days ago, the winning\u00a0 essay on copper, written by\u00a0Tiberiu Moga, appears in this month<\/a>\u2019s \u2018in your element\u2019 feature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copper has been part of our lives pretty much for ever \u2014 the Copper Age started around 5,000 BC (give or take a couple of thousand years depending on whether you count the Copper\u2013Stone Age or not), made its way into epic poetry (read the article<\/a> to find out how it features in the Kalevala<\/a>) and copper-based materials are still virtually everywhere, from the humble penny to electrical wiring. So what exactly does copper do, apart from giving her copper(II) carbonate-green colour to the Statue of Liberty? Scientifically speaking, lots of things.<\/p>\n

Moga is a Medical Doctor student at the University of Toronto<\/a>, and previously studied both chemistry and biology at Dartmouth College<\/a> \u2014 he is thus particularly interested in copper\u2019s biological functions and catalytic role in the synthesis of new medicines. He identifies three processes that cover most of its abilities: Lewis-acid catalysis, single-electron-transfer processes, and two-electron-transfer reactions.<\/p>\n

One of the best-known reactions involving copper as a Lewis acid is the popular \u2018click\u2019<\/a> azide\u2013alkyne cycloaddition that connects the two groups to form an azole ring. This fast, reliable reaction is generally easy to carry out and makes for a highly efficient step in a wide variety of processes including, for example, natural product total syntheses.<\/p>\n

Single-electron-transfer processes where copper adopts either a Cu+<\/sup><\/small> or Cu2+<\/sup><\/small> form are widespread in biosystems. Cellular respiration in organisms, for example, relies on a succession of these steps carried out by copper-containing enzymes to oxidize glucose, and extract its energy. Two-electron transfer reactions are also common \u2014 they go through a slightly more complex mechanism involving a halide ion.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Copper is looking increasingly like a good alternative to palladium catalysts, and it\u2019s also a useful building block \u2014 remember the copper nanotubes<\/a>?<\/p>\n

As it turns out, we\u2019re still very much in a copper age, and it looks all set for the duration.<\/p>\n

Anne<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anne Pichon (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers of this blog will be familiar with last year\u2019s essay competition\u00a0\u2014 as Stuart mentioned here a few days ago, the winning\u00a0 essay on copper, written by\u00a0Tiberiu Moga, appears in this month\u2019s \u2018in your element\u2019 feature.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anne-pichon","category-in-your-element"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}