Commercially available NaOH powder is shown to be an efficient transition-metal-free initiator for the catalytic hydroboration of aldehydes, ketones, alkynes and alkenes with HBpin and 9-BBN under mild conditions. Combined experimental and theoretical studies suggest that the catalytically active species is a boron hydride generated in situ from the reaction mixture.

N-heterocyclic ylide-like germylene effectively promotes the hydroboration of aldehydes and ketones under mild conditions with broad substrate tolerance, operational simplicity of the procedure and excellent yields.

Cyclic dipeptides, also known as 2,5-diketopiperazines (DKPs), represent the simplest peptides that were first completely characterized. DKPs can catalyze the chiral selection of reactions and are considered as peptide precursors. The origin of biochemical chirality and synthesis of peptides remains abstruse problem believed to be essential precondition to origin of life. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the DKPs could have played a key role in the origin of life. How the formation of the DKPs through the condensation of unprotected amino acids in simulated prebiotic conditions has been unclear. Herein, it was found that cyclo-Pro-Pro could be formed directly from unprotected proline in the aqueous solution of trimetaphosphate (P₃m) under mild condition with the yield up to 97%. Other amino acids were found to form proline-containing DKPs under the same conditions in spite of lower yield. During the formation process of these DKPs, P₃m promotes the formation of linear dipeptides in the first step of the mechanism. The above findings are helpful and significant for understanding the formation of DKPs in the process of chemical evolution of life.

The phosphorylation of nucleosides and their polymerization are crucial issues concerning the origin of life. The question of how these plausible chemical processes took place in the prebiotic Earth is still perplexing, despite several studies that have attempted to explain these prebiotic processes. The purpose of this article is to review these chemical reactions with respect to chemical evolution in the primeval Earth. Meanwhile, from our perspective, the chiral properties and selection of biomolecules should be considered in the prebiotic chemical origin of life, which may contribute to further research in this field to some extent.

The first phosphinodifluoroalkylation of alkynes is achieved and the simultaneous addition of both difluoromethylene and phosphinoyl groups across the alkynes with high regio- and stereoselectivity is of great significance. By using palladium(II) chloride as a catalyst and Xantphos as a ligand, the reaction of P(O)H compounds, alkynes, and ethyl difluoroiodoacetate proceeds with moderate to high yields, and provides an attractive approach for the construction of (E)-γ,γ-difluoroalkenylphosphine oxides.