Demyan 🇺🇦 Prokopchuk ⌬

Yesterday I had the honor to give an invited research seminar at Yale University - thanks to Nilay Hazari for hosting me! A huge highlight was spending time with THE Bob Crabtree after the seminar - a really kind, witty, yet towering figure in the organometallic chemistry community. 🧪☺️🥼

A warm welcome to the two newest PhD students in the Prokopchuk group, Zhenhong and Chiranjit! 👋🏻 Young Padawans ready to learn the ways of the Schlenk and do some cool organometallic chemistry. 🧪

Catalytically competent nickel(I)–isocyanide compounds for cross-coupling reactions Nature Catalysis, Published online: 14 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41929-025-01473-9Nickel-catalysed cross-coupling reactions generally use Ni(II) or Ni(0) precatalysts. Here the authors report thermally stable dinuclear Ni(I) complexes with commercial isocyanide ligands for the efficient catalysis in Kumada, Suzuki–Miyaura and Buchwald–Hartwig cross-coupling reactions.

New online! Catalytically competent nickel(I)–isocyanide compounds for cross-coupling reactions

Ruthenians - Wikipedia

A slightly finer point here: Although Klaus may have been referring to Russia in his naming, “Latin for Russia” is an oversimplification, given how national borders are drawn today. Ruthenia broadly covers many ethnically
Slavic people from Eastern Europe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutheni...

Congrats to Nini for passing her PhD candidacy exam! The lucky sweater pulled her through on some tricky C-H BDFE questions, and she’s now ready to devour some cake 🎂

We have developed a metal-free electrocatalyst for rapidly and selectively generating hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), a multi-ton commodity chemical. It operates through a novel H-atom transfer pathway to reduce O2.

Read now on ChemRxiv! doi.org/10.26434/che...

Great work by Sanju and Viani this week in sharing their results at Pacifichem! 🌺
While the weather this week was 💦, the science was 🔥

The Prokopchuk group is representin’ at Pacifichem !! 🌺☀️
Check out Sanju’s talk this afternoon in the main group symposium, and Viani will present a poster on her Mn redox mediator chemistry on Friday evening. (Yours truly has 2 talks on Friday 🙂)

Cool chemistry!!

Diaryl Bismuthides and Acyl Bismuthanes Enable Visible-Light-Induced Reversible Carbon Monoxide Insertion and Extrusion - Nature Communications Carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the simplest and most fundamental molecules that has fascinated chemists for decades. Early-on, chemists have recognized and exploited its favorable properties as a key ...

Nucleophilic #Bismuth: diarylbismuth-anions grant access to bismuth-acyl compounds & visible-light-induced reversible insertion/extrusion of CO! Just out @natcomms.nature.com: link.springer.com/article/10.1.... Congrats to the team (including @felixgeist.bsky.social, @jordipoater.bsky.social)!

Nov 12 - 8:30 pm in Saskatchewan 🇨🇦🍁

Had an awesome visit to the @upenn.edu chemistry department earlier this week. Thanks so much for hosting, Dan! (and for forgiving my lack of early TM chemistry in my talk 😆) 🧪🥼

Bismuth Radical Catalysis: Thermally Induced Intramolecular C(sp3)–C(sp) Cyclization of Unactivated Alkyl Iodides and Alkynes Bismuth radical chemistry has attracted increased interest in recent years. Here, we report a series of bismuth–manganese complexes that catalyze the intramolecular redox-neutral coupling of alkyl iod...

How to catalytically cyclize alkyl species onto alkynes? Just add a pinch of bismuth! Read about our findings in controlled radical reactions catalyzed by well-defined manganese- bismuth heterobimetallic complexes, just published in ACS Catalysis @pubs.acs.org: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Congrats, Crispin!!’! 💪🏻 My suspicions have been confirmed… I somehow always knew you were far more than just a charming and handsome research scientist 😉

Correct link here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

It has been an honour and privilege to co-write this piece in honour of Bob!

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

(Want to know how many papers Bob has in his self-curated digital reference library that he started in 1989? The answer will surprise you! Read the article to find out 😉)

Thanks so much to Eric Piechota and @natsynth.nature.com for highlighting our work!

#chemnobel #chemsky #ozchem

Isn’t it amazing that modern Macs/PCs are back compatible with “ancient” printers and scanners? My all-in-one inkjet printer/scanner/copier is almost 20 years old and still works beautifully. Totally bucks the “planned obsolescence” mantra in tech

2025 Recalls of Frozen Shrimp Products Associated with Cesium-137 2025 Recalls of Frozen Shrimp Products Associated with Cesium-137 Contamination from PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati due to Potential Safety Concerns

Continuing the saga of "radioactive shrimp" from Indonesia, the FDA this week posted a summary of all recalls so far flagged for Cs-137 contamination. It includes not only frozen shrimp but cocktail shrimp and shrimp skewers. 1/2

One of my students needs to make a Ni(II) starting material, and if you aren’t aware, Luigi Venanzi has this awesome paper from 1958: dx.doi.org/10.1039/JR95...

Thanks so much to @bribarbu.bsky.social and @cenmag.bsky.social for highlighting our recent work! 😊

@tkschramm.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social

NJ: most densely populated state in America! #bigthingssmallpackages

I remember this feeling of utter confusion when I first started reading Hardy Boys. A few books in, I found out the proper way to pronounce the word alibi. 🤯

Maybe? The types and sizes of Dremel rotary bits I recently saw in Lowes was pretty impressive.

😊

Congrats Zack!!! 🧪💪🏻