Two accidental nitroalkane reactions yield complementary light-driven routes to alkenes

Chemistry World reports that teams at New York University and the University of Regensburg independently found ways to use visible light to turn nitroalkanes into substituted alkenes. The NYU method needs no catalyst, while the Regensburg team's method uses a ruthenium photocatalyst and primarily yields tetrasubstituted alkenes. An editor connected the groups after rejecting their similar papers; they are now collaborating to refine the reactions and map which alkenes each can make.