Celebrating Two Centuries of Research in Selenium Chemistry: State of the Art and New Prospectives

Dear Colleagues,

In 2017, we will celebrate 200 years of research on selenium. In 1817, the Swedish chemists, Berzelius and Gahn, on roasting 200 kg of sulfur from a pyrite from the Falun mine, obtained about 3 g of a precipitate that they first wrongly identified as tellurium. Berzelius doubted this result and repeated the analysis some months later. He then realized that a new element was identified and he named this element Selenium (Greek: selene, moon) in consideration of its resemblance to tellurium (Latin: tellus, earth). Nowadays selenium containing compounds, capitalizing on two centuries of research and developments, play an important role in organic synthesis and biology. In particular, the redox properties of this element were studied and investigated from a synthetical point of view, as well as in consideration of its crucial involvement in several important biological processes. Organoselenium reagents can be efficiently used in selective electrophilic, nucleophilic and radical reactions such as stoichiometric reactants, or as catalysts showing, in this latter case, an appreciable TOF with respect to other analogue organocatalysts. Furthermore, modern application in medicinal chemistry, green chemistry, and chemistry of new materials are forming a new golden age for this element in the present and the near future.

This Special Issue welcomes the submission of papers based on original research that describe selenium compounds and their applications ranging from synthetically relevant organic transformations to the design and development of new selenium containing biologically active compounds and functionalized and smart materials.

Historical reviews as well as prospective analyses for the future in this field of research will be taken into consideration.

Prof. Dr. Claudio Santi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.