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An enantioselective Biginelli reaction that proceeds by a dual-activation route has been developed by using a combined catalyst of a readily available trans-4-hydroxyproline-derived secondary amine and a Brønsted acid. Aromatic, heteroaromatic, and fused-ring aldehydes were found to be suitable substrates for this multicomponent reaction. The corresponding dihydropyrimidines were obtained in moderate-to-good yields with up to 98 % ee under mild conditions. Based on the experimental results and the observed absolute configurations of the products, a plausible transition state has been proposed to explain the origin of the activation and the asymmetric induction.

The emissions of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have been identified as the main contributor for global warming and climate change. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is considered to be the most promising strategy to mitigate the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This review aims to provide the latest developments of CO2 storage from the perspective of improving safety and economics. The mechanisms and strategies of CO2 storage, focusing on their characteristics and current status, are discussed firstly. In the second section, the strategies for assessing and ensuring the security of CO2 storage operations, including the risks assessment approach and monitoring technology associated with CO2 storage, are outlined. In addition, the engineering methods to accelerate CO2 dissolution and mineral carbonation for fixing the mobile CO2 are also compared within the second section. The third part focuses on the strategies for improving economics of CO2 storage operations, namely enhanced industrial production with CO2 storage to generate additional profit, and co-injection of CO2 with impurities to reduce the cost. Moreover, the role of multiple CCS technologies and their distribution on the mitigation of CO2 emissions in the future are summarized. This review demonstrates that CO2 storage in depleted oil and gas reservoirs could play an important role in reducing CO2 emission in the near future and CO2 storage in saline aquifers may make the biggest contribution due to its huge storage capacity. Comparing the various available strategies, CO2-enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) operations are supposed to play the most important role for CO2 mitigation in the next few years, followed by CO2-enhanced gas recovery (CO2-EGR). The direct mineralization of flue gas by coal fly ash and the pH swing mineralization would be the most promising technology for the mineral sequestration of CO2. Furthermore, by accelerating the deployment of CCS projects on large scale, the government can also play its role in reducing the CO2 emissions.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a gas injection technology that enables the storage of CO 2 underground. The aims are twofold, on one hand to reduce the emissions of CO 2 into the atmosphere and on the other hand to increase oil/gas/heat recovery. Different types of CCUS technologies and related engineering projects have a long history of research and operation in the USA. However, in China they have a short development period ca. 10 years. Unlike CO 2 capture and CO 2 -EOR technologies that are already operating on a commercial scale in China, research into other CCUS technologies is still in its infancy or at the pilot-scale. This paper first reviews the status and development of the different types of CCUS technologies and related engineering projects worldwide. Then it focuses on their developments in China in the last decade. The main research projects, international cooperation, and pilot-scale engineering projects in China are summarized and compared. Finally, the paper examines the challenges and prospects to be experienced through the industrialization of CCUS engineering projects in China. It can be concluded that the CCUS technologies have still large potential in China. It can only be unlocked by overcoming the technical and social challenges.

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Caught in the light: The fulvalene diruthenium complex shown on the left side of the picture captures sun light, causing initial Ru-Ru bond rupture to furnish a long-lived triplet biradical of syn configuration. This species requires thermal activation to reach a crossing point (middle) into the singlet manifold on route to its thermal storage isomer on the right through the anti biradical.