Mihai Popescu

The Atroposelective Iodination of 2-Amino-6-arylpyridines Catalyzed by Chiral Disulfonimides Actually Proceeds via Brønsted Base Catalysis: A Combined Experimental, Computational, and Machine-Learning... A thorough mechanistic investigation into the disulfonimide (DSI)-catalyzed atroposelective iodination of 2-amino-6-arylpyridines with N-iodosuccinimide is described. While initially hypothesized to p...

A great way to start the year with a new paper now out in print. Excited to share my latest postdoctoral work from the Paton Group, in collaboration with the Denmark group at UIUC. Grateful for a fantastic collaboration integrating experiment, theory, and data.

Photocatalytic low-temperature defluorination of PFASs - Nature Photocatalysis at 40–60 °C is shown to be able to defluorinate perfluoroalkyl substances, known as ‘forever chemicals’, allowing the recycling of fluorine in polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substan...

There are two really cool #PFAS / #foreverchemicals degradation papers out in Nature today

In one, the authors show that powdered Teflon can be transformed into charcoal+fluoride with light+a catalyst+reducing reagent & some very important help from mainly KOH and Cs formate

This is bonkers cool: