News & Views

Hydrogen oxidation reactions in hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells have slow kinetics. Switching from platinum group metal (PGM) electrocatalysts to those that are PGM-free is a challenging task as the latter are prone to oxidation. Now, stable and active nickel–molybdenum–niobium catalysts are introduced for this type of fuel cell.

Photosynthetic semiconductor biohybrids represent a viable approach to solar-to-chemical production but it remains challenging to tap their full potential. Now, a microbe–quantum dot hybrid has been developed for simultaneous fixation of CO₂ and N₂ with internal quantum efficiencies approaching the theoretical limits.

Artificial enzymes capable of catalysing significant transformations are highly desired but usually suffer from limitations in structural design and poor efficiency. Now, a monolayered metal–organic framework is reported as an editable biomimetic platform to achieve exceptional artificial photosynthesis performance.

The composition of an electrolyte has a significant effect on electrocatalytic reaction rates and product selectivities. One mechanism by which spectator alkali cations can dictate reaction kinetics is now better understood.

In the context of probing electrocatalytic systems, quartz crystal microbalance measurements, initially developed in 1959, provided the base for measuring mass changes at the electrode–electrolyte interface under reaction conditions.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a phenomenon at the heart of very important tools in analytical chemistry and medical diagnostics. Thirty-five years ago, Clifford Russell Bowers and Daniel Weitekamp developed the PASADENA experiment — an ingenious chemical scheme that boosts sensitivity of proton NMR by three orders of magnitude, widening the applicability of NMR altogether.

Sensitive and isomer-specific analytical tools detect elusive intermediates and reveal reaction mechanisms. Photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy, introduced in 1966, now serves as a reaction microscope, identifies intermediates, and delineates gaseous and surface-confined processes in heterogeneous catalysis.

Understanding the molecular details of photoelectrochemical water oxidation is challenging. Now, theoretical and experimental evidence suggests that the accumulation of three adjacent holes is key to enabling the efficient oxidation of water to molecular oxygen on semiconducting oxides.

Constraining metabolic models by enzyme capacities greatly improves genotype–phenotype predictions. Now, a method for estimating enzyme turnovers based on deep learning has been developed and used to reconstruct enzyme-constrained genome-scale metabolic models for more than 300 yeast species.

General catalytic methods for free radical-mediated asymmetric transformations have long eluded synthetic organic chemists. Now, NAD(P)H-dependent ketoreductases are repurposed and engineered as highly efficient photoenzymes to catalyse asymmetric radical C–C couplings.

Elucidating the reaction mechanism of a catalytic process is very challenging. Now, advanced solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance experiments demonstrate the importance of oxygenates to regulate the conversion of synthesis gas over an oxide–zeolite-based bifunctional catalyst material.

Rationalizing the difference in the catalytic properties within a group of materials is a challenging task. A method is now proposed that addresses this issue by predicting the activity and stability of platinum-based electrocatalysts from operando spectroscopic data.

The direct use of ammonia for asymmetric synthesis is highly sought after. Now, an efficient enantioselective carbene insertion into the N–H bond of ammonia has been developed, producing diverse valuable chiral α-amino acids.

Supported subnanometre catalysts are atom efficient and possess unique properties, but their structure–activity relations are not well understood. Now it is possible to reveal their structure sensitivity by combining multimodal experiments and computations.

Molecular catalysts anchored on electrode surfaces are commonly assumed to behave similarly to their homogeneous counterparts. Under some conditions, however, they can behave like metallic electrodes. Now, the underlying phenomena behind this fresh paradigm in heterogeneous electrocatalysis are uncovered.

Bioelectrochemical CO₂ fixation often suffers from a mismatch between the electrochemical and biological components. Now, a spatial decoupling strategy, where CO₂ electrolysis produces electrolyte-free acetic acid as the feed for engineered yeast fermentation, enables highly productive synthesis of glucose or fatty acids.

Nitrogenase reduces dinitrogen at one of its iron–sulfur cores to produce ammonia by a convoluted mechanism. Now, research highlights the importance of sulfur mobility on one of nitrogenase’s metallocofactors for nitrogen fixation.

Selective electroreduction of CO₂-derived CO presents an opportunity to produce sustainable fuels and chemicals; however, its performance has been below practical levels. Now, an ordered Cu–Pd bimetallic catalyst has been developed for selective electroreduction of CO to acetate at an industrially relevant activity.

Low-temperature CO₂ electrolysis is increasingly attractive for the production of sustainable electrofuels and electrochemicals as intensified research keeps pushing performance higher. Recent efforts on system engineering now offer solutions to downstream purification challenges, taking this technology one step closer to maturity.

Studying the kinetics of high-energy and high-power batteries is a formidable challenge. Now, it has been shown that redox-mediated (RM) catalysis in Li–O₂ and Li–S batteries can be controlled by tuning parameters such as Li-ion concentration or electrolyte solvent, revealing threshold potentials in which rate constants increase several-fold.