Nature Chem. doi:10.1038/nchem.477 (2009)

Ammonia provides the nitrogen for most synthetic chemicals. But its industrial synthesis from nitrogen gas relies on high temperatures and pressures, and gobbles up fossil fuel.

Building on previous work on splitting the strong nitrogen–nitrogen triple bond, Paul Chirik and his colleagues at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, have now coaxed nitrogen to react with another abundant gas, carbon monoxide, in one room-temperature step. The reaction forms carbon–carbon and carbon–nitrogen bonds, the backbones of many useful chemicals, and is orchestrated by a compound containing the rare metal hafnium. This compound is not catalytic, so is unlikely to find widespread use. But the reaction's nitrogen-weakening mechanism may inform new ways to assemble complex molecules from simple gases.