Isocyanates serve as important and versatile chemical intermediates in the manufacture of diverse products ranging from flexible and rigid polyurethane foams to agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. The production of isocyanates today draws mainly from petrochemical raw materials, including benzene, toluene, propylene, and aniline, and they are produced industrially using phosgenation of alkyl or aromatic amines. This involves highly toxic phosgene and produces corrosive HCl, limiting synthetic applications.

Advances in science are driven by new discoveries which can pave the way to new create new research directions. For example, crystals by the nature of their order in three-dimensional space, cannot flex or expand, but with the integration of macromolecular ferritin crystals with hydrogel polymers can change their dimensions.

Cyanide is a rapidly acting poison, which, along with carbon monoxide, is the major cause of death from smoke inhalation. For treating a large number of casulaties in the field, the best mode of treatment would be intramuscular injection of antidote, preferably by an autoinjector. The two treatments currently approved for cyanide poisoning— hydroxocobalamin (Cyanokit) and the combination of sodium nitrite and sodium thiosulfate (Nithiodote)—must be administered by intravenous injection. Thus, no agent currently exists for rapidly treating a large number of cyanide poisoned persons. Another rapidly acting poison similar to cyanide, is hydrogen sulfide. People are exposed to hydrogen sulfide gas in a variety of occupations, most notably wastewater processing, and agriculture and petroleum industries. Up to 30% of oil workers have been exposed to sufficient amounts of hydrogen sulfide to have symptoms, and fatalities are not uncommon. No specific treatment currently exists for sulfide poisoning, and treatment consists of general supportive care.

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Nitrogen-rich tetrazines, have broad applications in biochemistry including small-molecule imaging, genetically targeted protein tagging, post-synthetic DNA labeling, nanoparticle-based clinical diagnostics, in-vivo imaging, as well as significant use in materials science, coordination chemistry, and the production of high energy materials such as those used in specialty explosives research. Among other uses, tetrazines can serve as coupling agents for molecular imaging compounds such as fluorophores or magnetic contrast agents, or even as ligands for metal catalysts or inorganic materials such as metal-organic frameworks. Tetrazines are also valuable synthetic intermediates, and have been elegantly deployed on route to several natural product syntheses. Despite the promise of tetrazines, the lack of convenient synthetic methods is a significant roadblock to their broader use and study.

Detecting ultra trace explosive analytes is important for forensic or counterterrorism  applications as well as for personnel, baggage, or cargo screening.  However, metal detectors frequently fail to detect explosives (such as those in the plastic casing of modern land mines); dogs are expensive and difficult to maintain: and other methods, including gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry, surface-enhanced Raman, energy dispersive X-ray diffraction, for example, are highly selective, but are expensive and not easily adapted to a small, low-power package.  Therefore, chemical sensors are preferable to other detection devices.