The Challenge of Recognizing Alien Technology - Medium

The latest chemistry news, including important research advances, business and policy trends, chemical safety practices, career guidance, and more. Many commercial products, including plasticizers and detergents, rely on aldehyde building blocks. Hydroformylation constructs aldehydes from alkenes and synthesis gas—a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The industrial process currently uses rhodium-based catalysts that are expensive, involve toxic phosphine-containing ligands, and occur in the same phase as the reactants, which complicates catalyst recovery.