Articles

Metal oxide alloys are important industrial catalysts, but their structure–activity relationships are poorly understood. Now, a study encompassing a combination of computational tools and machine learning approaches sheds light on the activity and selectivity of zinc–chromium oxides during syngas conversion.

The roughness factor of an electrode has been generally used to increase total rates of production, though rarely as a means to improve selectivity. Now, Jaramillo, Hahn and co-workers direct the selectivity of CO reduction to multicarbon oxygenates at low overpotentials by increasing the roughness factor of nanostructured Cu electrodes.

The active sites of metal-free carbon catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction remain still elusive. Now, Yao, Dai and co-workers combine work-function analyses with macro/micro-electrochemical measurements on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite and conclude that pentagon defects are the main active sites for acidic oxygen reduction.

Primary alcohols are known for their broad application in life sciences and the chemical industry. Now, Beller and colleagues present a regioselective, iron-catalysed hydrogenation of aliphatic and aromatic epoxides as a general route to primary alcohols under mild conditions

The reduction of alkynes to alkenes is complicated by the potential for over-reduction to the alkane. Here, for the iridium-catalysed semi-hydrogenation of alkynes, the endpoint of the reaction is clearly identified by a colour change of the metal complex.

Detailed knowledge about its catalytic process is important for exploiting [Fe]-hydrogenase—an enzyme that cleaves and produces H₂—for technological purposes. This study presents an atomic-resolution crystal structure of a substrate-bound closed active form of the enzyme and a precise catalytic cycle.

DNAzymes are attractive catalysts for biomedical and biotechnological applications, but their catalytic mechanism remained obscure. This work investigates the detailed reaction mechanism of RNA ligation catalysed by the 9DB1 DNAzyme, revealing that it resembles those of natural protein enzymes.

Axially chiral compounds have proven to be privileged catalysts/ligands for asymmetric catalysis, with BINOL, SPNIOL and their derivatives being particularly successful. Here the authors report a family of axially chiral alkenes, and demonstrate their use in asymmetric catalysis.

The Fischer–Tropsch reaction is one of the key means of producing synthetic fuels. Here a deposition method to disperse cobalt nanoparticles across an alpha alumina support is shown to produce a highly stable system capable of withstanding demanding conditions while providing excellent activity.

Improving the performance of commercial three-way catalysts like rhodium on alumina is a major challenge considering the limited design space allowed for such systems. Now, solution atomic layer deposition is used to incorporate titania or zirconia promoters into this catalyst, leading to remarkable improvements in its overall performance.

Platinum plays a crucial role in various electrocatalytic systems, but its scarcity and cost limit its practical application. Now, a single-atom tailoring strategy applied to platinum nanowires maximizes their specific and mass activities for the hydrogen evolution and methanol and ethanol oxidation reactions.

Electrochemical water splitting in acidic conditions is limited by the lack of inexpensive and stable anode catalysts. Now, Simonov and colleagues report a non-noble metal-based oxygen evolution catalyst formed in situ that exhibits high stability for acidic water oxidation due to a self-healing mechanism.

Electromicrobial production can replace fossil carbon with CO₂ and electricity as feedstocks for chemical production. This work analyses and compares different electromicrobial production approaches, providing a data-driven roadmap for the sustainable and efficient implementation of this technology.

The availability of Lewis antigens allows the investigation of their important biological functions, but site-specific fucosylation for their synthesis is challenging. This work reports an enzymatic platform for the synthesis of complex Lewis antigens, offering an opportunity to explore the Lewis antigen related glycome.

For hydrogen to become a direct, portable fuel source, the difficulties with its storage and subsequent release must be addressed. Here ethylene glycol is shown to act as an efficient, reversible liquid-to-liquid hydrogen carrier—particularly attractive due to its theoretical H₂ capacity of 6.5 wt%.

H₂ is a promising mediator of electrons from electrodes to microbes for chemicals production from CO₂—but its low solubility limits the productivity. This work reports nanoemulsions as H₂ carriers that improve the solubility and transfer kinetics of H₂, increasing the productivity of the system.

Upgrading CO to high-value multicarbon products is a promising avenue for fuel and chemical feedstock production. Here triangular Cu nanosheets that selectively expose the (111) surface exhibit a high acetate partial current density (131 mA cm^–2) and Faradaic efficiency (48%) in CO electroreduction.

Immobilized molecular catalysts can be efficient for the electroreduction of CO₂, but their practical applicability is hampered by the continued use of rare metals. Here, a photoelectrode based on an earth-abundant molecular catalyst with high CO₂ reduction performance is introduced.

In heterogeneous catalysis, solvents—and their interaction with metal supports—have a complex effect on reactivity. This study shows that, in Pd-catalysed furfural hydrogenation, water influences the rate and selectivity by favouring a proton transfer rather than a purely surface-bound mechanism.

Methane monooxygenase (MMO)—a protein of high biotechnological interest for the selective and mild conversion of methane to methanol—lacks a high-throughput production system. Now, the authors report the efficient production of particulate MMO-mimics for catalysis in solution and hydrogels.