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Enhancing the oxygen exchange rate at the surface of oxides through rational design has long been a key goal of researchers pursuing sustainable energy solutions. Now, a simple infiltration method reveals that reaction rates on porous mixed-conducting oxides scale with the acidity of the infiltrate and can be tuned by orders of magnitude.
The development of feasible routes for the valorization of waste plastics is an urgent challenge to be solved. Now, a strategy is introduced for the selective production of hydrogen-rich gas and multi-walled carbon nanotubes in a single-step process using an FeAlOx catalyst and microwave irradiation.
Extensive research efforts in systems chemistry are directed to the development of in vitro systems that mimic complex natural networks. Now, stimuli-responsive nucleic acid-based networks conjugated to biocatalysts for the triggered and orthogonal control over biocatalytic cascades are reported.
Organochlorides are attractive building blocks for photocatalytic synthesis that have been receiving increasing attention lately, thanks to recent methodological advances that overcome their inertness. In this Review Article, Giedyk and colleagues summarise the developments and strategies for their photocatalytic activation.
Domino asymmetric electrophilic halocyclization is useful for the synthesis of polycyclic pharmaceutical compounds, but remains limited to the generation of fused rings. Now, the scope is extended to complex spirocycle products by a catalytic protocol involving an electron-rich thiourea catalyst.
The spatial segregation of distinct catalytic functionalities within the same material holds great promise for cascade or antagonistic reactions, but it remains challenging. Here, the authors report the successful realization of this approach for an efficient hierarchical porous silica catalyst featuring spatially separated sulfated zirconia and magnesium oxide.
The electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction has recently attracted significant interest, but the true source of ammonia formation remains sometimes unclear. This Analysis reports a systematic investigation of the presence of nitrogen-containing species in a number of commercial catalysts, revealing substantial levels of NOx− and nitrides impurities for some of them.
Difunctionalization of alkenes can afford useful building blocks from readily available starting materials, but these reactions often show limitations in olefin scope. This work presents a catalyst-controlled enantioselective 1,1-arylboration of unactivated alkenes that is independent of directing groups.
Multimetal oxyhydroxides are among the most active catalysts for alkaline water oxidation, but tuning their properties remains a challenge. Now, the performance of NiFe- and FeCo-based catalysts is optimized with the incorporation of high-valence modulator metals, which shifts the active metals towards lower valence states and enables lower overpotentials.
Considerable research achievements were made to address the plastic crisis using biotechnology, but this is still limited to polyesters. This Comment aims to clarify important aspects related to myths and realities about plastic biodegradation and suggests distinct strategies for a bio-based circular plastic economy in the future.
Despite the efforts to tune their properties, the efficiency of tantalum nitride photoanodes falls short of the theoretical value. Here, a gradient Mg doping strategy is introduced to engineer tantalum nitride’s band structure and control its defects, leading to an applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of 3.25%.
The valorisation of plastic waste is highly desirable from an environmental perspective but generally yields low-value products. Now a method is disclosed to deconstruct plastic feedstocks into high-value hydrogen and carbon materials by means of an iron-based catalyst under microwave irradiation.
Achieving plastic deconstruction with high selectivity is crucial for upcycling schemes, but remains challenging. Here, a processive approach for the selective hydrogenolysis of high-density polyethylene into narrow alkane fractions is introduced relying on a Pt/SiO2 catalyst encapsulated in a mesoporous silica shell.
The development of chiral catalysts is of fundamental importance in asymmetric catalysis. Now, chiral paddle-wheel diruthenium complexes are reported that are stable under oxidizing conditions and effective in asymmetric C–C and C–N bond-forming reactions with turnover numbers of up to 1,880,000.
Improving the kinetics of O2 reduction on oxide surfaces is critical in many energy and fuel conversion technologies. Now, the authors demonstrate that the acidity of infiltrated surface oxides can serve as a descriptor of the oxygen surface exchange rate on mixed conducting oxides.