Volume 1 Issue 11, November 2018

Databases of computational results hold high promise for accelerating catalysis research. Still, many challenges remain and consensus on facets such as metadata, reliability and curation is crucial to transform the hype into an attractive technology.

Despite being used as a water-oxidation catalyst in alkaline electrolysis for over a century, the details of how Ni–Fe (oxy)hydroxide catalysts function remains unclear. Now, using a nanoparticle model system, the intrinsic activity and underlying catalytic mechanism is probed.

Indirect methods are generally adopted to elucidate complicated mechanisms of transition metal catalysis. Now, a way to directly observe transient manganese species and monitor key reaction steps has been established by using time-resolved multiple-probe spectroscopy.

The mechanism of methanol coupling to methyl formate over single-crystal gold catalysts has been firmly established but barely reconciled with experiments performed under practical conditions. Now, a method to close this gap has been reported, which enables the prediction of the reaction´s selectivity for a broad range of experimental conditions.

The reason for the high water-oxidation activity of Ni(Fe)O_xH_y catalysts in alkaline electrolyte is not yet well understood. Now, Chorkendorff and co-workers report that oxygen evolution is limited to the near-surface region by measuring the activity trends of mass-selected NiFe nanoparticles.

Although mechanistic understanding can drive new reactivity development, the key bond-forming and -breaking steps in catalytic cycles are often sufficiently fast to elude observation. Here, the authors photochemically produce a key intermediate in Mn-catalysed C–H functionalization, and follow the subsequent steps—spanning processes occurring over seven orders of magnitude in time—using time-resolved infrared spectroscopy.

The precise understanding of the active phase under reaction conditions at the molecular level is crucial for the design of improved catalysts. Now, Strasser, Jones and colleagues correlate the high activity of IrNi@IrO_x core–shell nanoparticles with the amount of lattice vacancies produced by the nickel leaching process that takes place before and during water oxidation, and elucidate the underlying structural-electronic effects.

Catalytic studies on single crystals are very insightful, but it is often difficult to extend their conclusions to an actual catalytic process due to gaps in the experimental conditions. Now, Madix and co-workers report a method to bridge these gaps using the oxidative coupling of methanol on gold as an example.

Organoboron compounds are versatile intermediates in organic chemistry, and as such the selective introduction of multiple boron-containing groups is of high interest. Here Shi and co-workers report a copper-catalysed method that can selectively introduce two, three or four boronate groups into common starting materials by simply making minor modifications to the reaction conditions.

Nature’s oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II is a multinuclear manganese cluster. Whether mononuclear manganese can also efficiently catalyse water oxidation has been a long-standing question. Now, Li and co-workers show that single atoms of manganese can be anchored on nitrogen-doped graphene to catalyse the oxygen evolution reaction. Credit: Water image Frankie Angel / Alamy Stock Photo.

Improving the stability of proteins for biotechnological applications is challenging. Now, Gillam and co-workers show that the thermal stability and longevity of enzymes can be remarkably enhanced in a single step from sequences of recent ancestors of primitive vertebrates that existed in mild conditions.

Methanol synthesis from methane is a promising route to valorize this abundant natural gas, but existing thermal processes require harsh reaction conditions. Now, a photocatalytic approach based on TiO₂-supported iron oxide species is described, which affords methanol in high yield and selectivity at ambient conditions.