Volume 3 Issue 12, December 2020

The Fischer–Tropsch product, water, is regularly hypothesized to be the driving force for catalyst deactivation. Cobalt nanoparticles may be oxidized to CoO, form mixed-metal oxides with supports, or sinter to larger particles. This Comment discusses the feasibility of these deactivation pathways, highlighting the importance of in situ characterization.

Nickel–iron and cobalt–iron (oxy)hydroxides are state-of-the-art electrocatalysts for oxygen production in alkaline conditions. Now, the addition of high-valent dopants has been demonstrated to further propel the catalytic rate in these materials by an order of magnitude.

Supramolecular hosts can readily self-assemble from simple components and allow remarkable chemical rate enhancements and product selectivity utilising defined microenvironments and specific host–guest interactions. This Review Article describes recent conceptual and catalytic advances made in this field.

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.

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.

Controlling the regioselectivity in the coupling of simple aromatics is challenging. Now, para–para selectivity is achieved during the aerobic dehydrogenative homocoupling of arenes through a shape-selective catalyst based on molecular palladium confined within the framework of zeolite materials.

Tetraarylmethanes display special properties due to their spherical nature and are applied in various areas, but strategies for their asymmetric production are lacking. Now, their enantioselective synthesis is reported and in vitro studies indicate their potential as anticancer agents.

Preparative methods for thioester and tertiary amide formation are currently missing in the biocatalysis repertoire. Now, a mutation of serine to cysteine in the catalytic triad of an acyltransferase expands its synthetic capability to generate these compounds while retaining its natural activity towards alcohols.

Despite their promising optical properties, organolead halide perovskites are not frequently used in photocatalysis due to their low stability in water. Here, a long-lasting semiconductive organolead iodide layered crystalline material with the ability to perform overall water splitting is introduced.

Although the light-promoted Sabatier reaction has great potential for CO₂ remediation strategies, its mechanism is not fully understood. Now, a steady-state isotopic kinetic analysis coupled with infrared spectroscopy reveals important aspects of this hydrogenation process over a NiO_x/La₂O₃@TiO₂ composite catalyst.

Platinum-group-metal-free, non-iron catalysts are highly desirable for the oxygen reduction reaction at proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell cathodes, as they avoid the detrimental Fenton reactions. Now, a cobalt and nitrogen co-doped carbon catalyst with atomically dispersed porphyrin-like CoN₄C₁₂ sites is reported with an improved activity and durability in PEM fuel cell conditions.

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 NO_x⁻ and nitrides impurities for some of them.