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  • Unstrained aryl–aryl bonds are among the most inert bonds in organic chemistry. Now the development of a split cross-coupling strategy enables the direct functionalization of such bonds through Rh-catalysed C–C cleavage and cross-coupling with aryl halides, providing a method for biaryl synthesis.

    • Congjun Yu
    • Zining Zhang
    • Guangbin Dong
    Article
  • The synthesis of well-defined heterostructure interfaces can be leveraged to design advanced catalysts. Now a catalyst consisting of carbon-supported Janus particles with crystalline Ru and amorphous CrOx sides is shown to achieve high performance for both alkaline hydrogen oxidation and evolution reactions due to the synergy between both sides.

    • Bingxing Zhang
    • Jianmei Wang
    • Wenping Sun
    Article
  • The coenzyme Q biosynthetic pathway has evaded full characterization for decades, in part due to the inherent insolubility of coenzyme Q and the instability of its membrane-associated biosynthetic enzymes. Now, researchers have resurrected an active ancestral coenzyme Q metabolon in vitro that has unveiled valuable insights into previously uncharacterized aspects of coenzyme Q biosynthesis.

    • Kelsey J. Feustel
    • Catherine F. Clarke
    News & Views
  • A deeper understanding of reaction mechanisms should lead to improvements in the selectivity of organic electrosynthesis methods. This approach has now been used to explain the role of magnesium diacetate in the Ag-electrocatalysed reductive coupling of sp3 organic chlorides with aldehydes or ketones with increased selectivity for the desired alcohol product.

    • Angel Cuesta
    News & Views
  • Correlating structure and activity is a very important research goal in catalysis. This Editorial reflects on this topic, taking inspiration from examples in the current issue.

    Editorial
  • In 2018 a descriptor was put forward to correlate the activity of various electrocatalytic reactions on carbon-based single-atom catalysts, but some data the work was based on were later found to be incorrect. This work revisits and amends the original 2018 study while presenting a modified version of the φ descriptor.

    • Haoxiang Xu
    • Daojian Cheng
    • Xiao Cheng Zeng
    Article
  • Catalytic conjunctive cross-coupling for the generation of densely functionalized sp3-rich scaffolds that are often found in biologically active compounds is underdeveloped. Now, iron-catalysed dicarbofunctionalization of olefins with dialkylzinc and haloalkanes provides access to synthetically challenging C(sp3)-rich molecules.

    • Tong-De Tan
    • Juan M. I. Serviano
    • Ming Joo Koh
    Article
  • Mucins are glycosylated proteins with important biological functions such as protection. Although glycopeptidases can cleave them, dedicated hydrolytic enzymes specific for mucins were unknown. Now microbial mucinases are discovered that specifically recognize mucin O-glycan clusters and employ two glutamic acid residues for catalytic cleavage.

    • Yoshiki Narimatsu
    • Christian Büll
    • Ramon Hurtado-Guerrero
    Article
  • [Cu(phen)(binap)]+ features a relatively high photocatalytic activity, but its low photostability hinders its use in organic chemistry. Now immobilization of this motif on a metal–organic framework matrix enhances its stability and excited-state lifetime, enabling the promotion of [2+2] cycloadditions of styrenes with a variety of olefins, including electron-deficient alkenes.

    • Jun Guo
    • Qi Xia
    • Jian He
    Article
  • S-formyl thiols can be produced by S-formylation reactions in enzymatic processes that fix CO2 through the formate dehydrogenase enzyme. Here the authors show the use of an organocatalytic metal-free process for the direct mono- and di-S-formylation of thiols using CO2.

    • Subir Maji
    • Arpan Das
    • Swadhin K. Mandal
    Article
  • Multiple parameters are generally responsible for the reactivity of particulate catalysts, although nanoparticle proximity is often neglected. Here the authors report the impact of such structural factor using the hydrogenation of benzaldehyde over PdAu nanoparticles supported on macroporous SiO2 as the probe reaction.

    • Kang Rui Garrick Lim
    • Selina K. Kaiser
    • Joanna Aizenberg
    Article