This literature discussion LO was created for the ACS National Award Winners 2023 collection. Dr. Jerry Atwood was the recipient of the 2023 ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry.

This Literature Discussion LO was created for the ACS Inorganic Chemistry Award Winners. Dr. Kit Cummins was the recipient of the 2023 Frederick Hawthorne Award in Main Group Inorganic Chemistry. This LO is based on a recent paper from the group of Dr. Cummins, entitled "Sustainable Production of Reduced Phosphorus Compounds: Mechanochemical Hydride Phosphorylation Using Condensed Phosphates as a Route to Phosphite", published in ACS Central Science, 2022, 8, 332-339.

This paper describes the use of a  catalytic nickel system for the hydrodefluorination of aryl amides. While organofluorine compounds are extremely useful because of their unique properties, there are growing concerns about the impact of these compounds on the environment. Carbon-fluorine bonds are extremely strong, and so getting them to react is a significant challenge for chemists.

This paper describes work from the Milstein group in which ruthenium catalysts with pincer ligands are used to depolymerize nylons by breaking the C-N bond and hydrogenating the resulting products to amines and alcohols. Waste plastic is a serious environmental concern that needs a solution. Organometallic chemists put significant effort into finding ways to convert monomers into polymers, and now we must figure out ways to do the reverse.

This literature discussion was created to accompany the coordination chemistry chapter of a foundation-level inorganic course. It introduces the concept of cyclopentadienyl (Cp) ring slippage as a mechanism for ligand substitution.