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Reactive metal–support interactions are generally considered characteristic of oxide supports. Now, two-dimensional niobium carbide, a member of the MXenes family, has been used as a platinum support providing an active water-gas shift catalyst via reduction-induced formation of stable, catalytically active Nb–Pt nanoparticles.

Historically catalysis has evolved as a set of different fields linked together by a unifying concept. While the distinctions between the various areas serve a purpose, exciting work is happening at the interfaces.

Guiding principles for the design of novel catalysts are key to developing new synthesis approaches. Now, a general principle has been defined to predict the reactivity for the hydrogen cycle of atomically dispersed metals on carbon supports.

Industrial research of new catalysts has benefited from both insight and predictions from first-principles calculations. We now find ourselves on the brink of a digital transformation where multiscale approaches and machine-learning methods promise to revolutionize the field.

Catalytic oxybromination is an important strategy for the upgrade of methane. Here, Pérez-Ramírez and co-workers employ operando photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy as well as kinetic analyses and molecular simulations to unravel the complex reaction mechanism.

Methane borylation allows for the functionalization of an otherwise unreactive compound, enabling its use as a one-carbon building block; however, competing diborylation presents a selectivity issue. Now, a metal–organic-framework-based catalyst highly selective for monoborylation is reported. The selectivity is due to the reaction taking place within the catalyst pores, which excludes the formation of the larger diborlyated product.

Reactive metal–support interactions can tune the activity of heterogeneous catalysts, but have mainly been reported for oxide supports. Now, the metal–support interaction of platinum with MXenes at moderate temperature is reported, using the water-gas shift reaction as an example to showcase the properties of a representative catalyst.

Access to renewable hydrogen represents an important target for the success of the hydrogen economy. Now, a one-pot method is presented for the conversion of cellulosic biomass into hydrogen via formic acid as the intermediate, followed by its application to a fuel cell.

Energy-based descriptors have proven very successful in recent years despite their impracticality from an experimental viewpoint. Here, a universal descriptor based only on electronegativities and coordination numbers is put forward to predict the activity of carbon-based single-metal-atom catalysts for three of the most important electrocatalytic reactions. This descriptor can be extended to metal–macrocycle complexes with similar coordination environments.

The main hurdle to the deployment of carbon nanotubes in the electronics industry is the requirement of obtaining pure semiconductor nanotube horizontal arrays. Here, a method is presented to prepare highly pure semiconductor nanotubes by switching the direction of an applied electric field during synthesis.

Discerning the precise mechanisms of photocatalytic energy conversion has long been a challenge. A computational multiscale approach reveals insights into the reaction pathways and rate-limiting steps of the oxygen evolution reaction, the bottleneck for water splitting on TiO₂ surfaces.

Reproducibility is a cornerstone of science. It is imperative that everyone involved in the generation of scientific knowledge holds themself to the highest standard to ensure reproducibility.

For electrocatalysts, the activity and stability is determined by the surface — often just a few atomic layers thick. Now atom probe tomography is used to examine the changing surface of an oxygen evolution catalyst at near-atomic-scale resolution, linking structure to activity and stability.

The solid electrolyte interphase that forms on graphite anodes plays a vital role in the performance of lithium-ion batteries. Now research shows that the formation of lithium fluoride deposits — one of the main components of the solid electrolyte interphase — is strongly influenced by the electrocatalytic activity of the anode.

Catalysis is a complex, multidimensional and multiscale field of research. Machine learning is helping to build better models, understand catalysis research and generate new knowledge about catalysis.

Tensile strain of a solid surface can result in either strengthening or weakening of bonds with adsorbates. Adsorption energies of different adsorbate/site combinations may be shifted in different directions — a striking violation of the Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi relation.

A high reaction barrier is often assumed as the limiting factor in photocatalytic oxygen evolution reactions on titanium dioxide. Now, it is shown that the hole concentration at the semiconductor’s surface is the actual bottleneck in determining the catalytic efficiency.