Thiyl Chemistry: Cysteine-Catalyzed Maleate Isomerization via Aqueous Thiyl Radical Processes
Satoru Kosaka, Kentaro Kurebayashi, Naoki Yamato, Hiroshi Tanaka, Naoki Haruta*, and Masanori Yamamoto*
Green Chem. 2025, 27, 2743‒2750
DOI: 10.1039/d4gc06310d [pdf]

This work reports an electron-deficient thiyl radical, with the reactivity complementary to thiolates, for highly efficient catalysis in maleate isomerization. The catalysis was corroborated by DFT calculations, and this will provide a solid basis for further development in the field of thiyl radical-based molecular catalysis.

M.Y. has been awarded an Outstanding Reviewer for RSC Advances from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr. Masanori Yamamoto

Assist. Professor of Chemical Science
Department of Chemical Science and
Engineering,Institute of Science Tokyo
2‒12‒1 Ookayama, Tokyo 152‒8550
RSC Advances Outstanding Reviewer
E-mail : yamamoto@mol-chem.com

Toward Three-dimensionally Ordered Nanoporous Graphene Materials: Template Synthesis, Structure, and Applications
Masanori Yamamoto*, Shunsuke Goto, Tang Rui, and Kaoru Yamazaki*
Chem. Sci. 2024, 15, 1953‒1965
DOI: 10.1039/d3sc05022j [pdf]
(Corresponding Author)

This work is a continuation of our investigation on pursuing ideal 3D graphene materials (Chem. Sci. 2022, 13, 3140‒3146) including minimal surface graphenes.

Surface Defect Healing in Annealing from Nanoporous Carbons to Nanoporous Graphenes

Kaoru Yamazaki*, Shunsuke Goto, Shunya Yoshino, Anna Gubarevich, Katsumi Yoshida, Hideki Kato, and Masanori Yamamoto*
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2023, 25, 32972‒32978
DOI: 10.1039/d3cp04921c [pdf]
(Related Commentary in English)
(Corresponding Author)

Structural details in 2D graphenes and 1D carbon nanotubes have been extensively studied using Raman spectroscopy. In this study, we investigated the Raman spectroscopy of our 3D nanoporous graphene materials (NPGs) to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze the structural defects in the nanographene architecture in NPGs, and the analytical results have been complementarily validated by other analytical techniques. This work will be the basis of our next investigation in the development and analysis of novel 3D graphene materials in the due course.

M.Y. served as a referee of Angewandte Chemie, a journal of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, GDCh).

Angew. Chem.

Solid-State Schikorr Reaction from Ferrous Chloride to Magnetite with Hydrogen Evolution as the Kinetic Bottleneck

Masanori Yamamoto*, Yota Takamura, Yoshiaki Kokubo, Makoto Urushihara, Nobutake Horiuchi, Wenbin Dai, Yuichiro Hayasaka, Eiji Kita, and Koichiro Takao*
Inorg. Chem. 2023, 62, 14580‒14589
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c01676
(Corresponding Author)

Non-aqueous Bonding of Leuprorelin to Ochratoxin A for Peptide-based Solid-phase Extraction
Naoki Yamato, Noriaki Kumagai, Momoha Okahira, Satoru Kosaka, Shuji Kodama, Ryohei Yamamoto, Atsushi Yamamoto, Koichiro Takao, and Masanori Yamamoto*
Chem. Commun. 2022, 58, 12106‒12109 [pdf]
DOI: 10.1039/d2cc04430g (Commentary in English)

We found that an anticancer peptide leuprorelin strongly binds to a carcinogenic ochratoxin A (OTA) in non-aqueous solutions, and this finding has been utilized for the efficient solid-phase extraction of OTA from non-aqueous solutions using the peptide anchored onto surfaces of mesoporous polymers.

Porous Nanographene Formation on γ-Alumina Nano-particles via Transition-Metal-Free Methane Activation
Masanori Yamamoto*, Qi Zhao, Shunsuke Goto, Yu Gu, Takaaki Toriyama, Tomokazu Yamamoto, Hirotomo Nishihara, Alex Aziz, Rachel Crespo-Otero, Devis Di Tommaso*, Masazumi Tamura, Keiichi Tomishige, Takashi Kyotani, and Kaoru Yamazaki*
Chemical Science 2022, 13, 3140‒3146 [pdf]
DOI: 10.1039/d1sc06578e (Commentary in English)

This work reports an early-stage reaction mechanism in activating CH4 by surface catalysis of nano-sized metal oxides for synthesizing porous nanographene (Selected as HOT Article).

Recent work for electrochemistry using a nanoporous continuous graphene material is published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. This study revealed the importance of pore volumes of conductive carbon supports with solid-state sulfur for controlling nanostructured interfaces, especially with high sulfur loading at high temperatures and at high rates.

Nano-Confinement of Insulating Sulfur in the Cathode Composite of All-Solid-State Li‒S Batteries using Flexible Carbon Materials with Large Pore Volumes
Masanori Yamamoto* et al.
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2021, 13, 38613‒38622
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c10275
(Corresponding Author)

We reported the preparation and full characterization of nanostructured carbon materials derived from ethynyl-substituted iron porphyrin with the N4-Fe coordination sites being confirmed by the XAFS analysis.

Iron Porphyrin-derived Ordered Carbonaceous Frameworks
Masanori Yamamoto* et al.
Catal. Today 2021, 364, 164‒171
DOI: j.cattod.2020.07.003
(Corresponding Author)

Lecture: M.Y. had a talk regarding carbon-based chemistry at QMUL.
Title: "Chemistry of carbon materials: Fundamentals and applications"
Speaker: Masanori Yamamoto
Place: the Joseph Priestley Building, the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, UK
Date: 6th February 2020 (Invited Lecture)