Current Problems of the Organic Chemistry of Sulfur and Selenium

Dear Colleagues,

Sulfur- and/or selenium-containing organic compounds, including polymers and materials displaying special properties, are of great importance in both academic, basic research and for large scale industrial applications. Sulfur belongs to a narrow group of elements that appear both in bound and non-bound forms. For this reason, sulfur and its compounds accompany people in diverse activities that have been developed for many centuries. Selenium is less common and only appears in the bound form.

Organic synthesis based on sulfur compounds has been intensively developed and sulfur-containing functional groups are known, for example, as useful auxiliaries for asymmetric synthesis. Catalytic reactions with sulfur catalysts have been developed for decades and so-called thiourea organocatalysis belongs to the most modern and powerful strategies applied in organic synthesis. Sulfur-containing functional groups are crucial for mechanisms governing organic reactions and the importance of the sulfur atom for the switch from a concerted to step-wise mechanism in cycloaddition reactions is a problem of current experimental and computational studies.

In our times, sulfur- and/or selenium-based organic and inorganic materials play a leading role in the development of new energy sources. Material scientists are developing both organic and inorganic sulfur compounds as new, non-metallic, low-temperature superconducting materials; one known example is ‘quantum dots’, which are finding more and more applications in the construction of the modern generation of computers.

Remarkable progress has been observed in sulfur-based polymer chemistry. For example, copolymerization of liquid sulfur with 1,3-di-isopropenylbenzene in the absence of any organic solvent is of great interest as a method for the preparation of a stable copolymer that can be cast in molds and also forms a transparent glass.

Sulfur is an important component of all living cells since cysteine, methionine, and homocysteine belong to the group of naturally-occuring amino acids. During the last century, the medical sciences developed numerous drugs that contain sulfur as an important element of the organic molecule. Most of them belong to the class of aromatic or non-aromatic sulfur heterocycles. Similarly, selenium has been demonstrated as an important component of many medicinally-important compounds. Today, scientists are in search of natural and synthetic sulfur and selenium compounds for new medicines.

The announced Special Issue is open for research related to current studies performed in chemical laboratories involving sulfur- and/or selenium-containing compounds. The works resulting from this research, aimed either at the solution of basic, mechanistic problems or at synthetically relevant questions of practical importance, are welcome. The Special Issue is open for submissions until 31 October, 2019.

Prof. Grzegorz Mlostoń
Prof. Jarosław Lewkowski
Prof. Jarosław Romański
Guest Editors

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