Caterpillars become ‘crazy option for synthetic chemists’ to make oxygen-doped nanocarbons

Insects could provide an alternative way of synthesising oxygen-doped molecular nanocarbons that are notoriously difficult to prepare in the lab. Dubbed ‘in-insect synthesis’, the researchers, based in Japan, said the technique could generate new opportunities for the discovery, development and application of non-natural molecules, such as nanocarbons.

Kenichiro Itami, a synthetic chemist at Riken Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan, who led the study, admits that in-insect synthesis will sound ‘pretty crazy’ to most organic and synthetic chemists. ‘Not many people are doing insect chemical biology or seeing the relationship within a synthetic molecule or functional molecule with an insect,’ he adds.