On December 21st, 2018, the research group of Assistant Professor Christoforos Kokotos (Department of Chemistry) and in particular Errika Voutyritsa (PhD candidate), Dr. Alexis Theodorou (PhD candidate at the time of the research) and Dr. Maroula Kokotou (post-doctoral researcher) received the Hildegard-Zervas award for the promotion of Organic Chemistry from the Academy of Athens (National Academy of Sciences of Greece), for their study entitled: «Organocatalytic oxidation of substituted anilines to azoxybenzenes and nitro compounds: mechanistic studies excluding the involvement of a dioxirane intermediate», Green Chem., 2017,19, 1291-1298.
Their study introduced a novel, green and environment-friendly, organocatalytic and selective oxidation protocol of anilines to azoxybenzenes and nitro compounds, and was conducted in full at the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The reaction and its products are frequently employed in Chemical Industry and especially Pharmaceutical Industry. Key point in the study was the use of High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) for the elucidation of the reaction mechanism, which was proven to be different than that proposed in literature. The potential of this study has been already recognized from Royal Chemical Society and the journal Green Chemistry, since the article has been selected as Green Chemistry Hot Article 2017.
