Reviews & Analysis

Suppressing the formation of oxide encapsulation layers on the active metal during pretreatment would lead to increased catalytic activity in supported catalysts, but controlling the strong metal-support interactions is challenging. Now it is shown that cleverly introducing TiO_x patches onto Ru/MnO allows engineering effective oxide–oxide interface channels and avoids oxide overlayer formation, thus improving the performance of CO₂ hydrogenation to produce CO.

Diverse cytochrome P450s (CYPs) in nature can modify terpenoid scaffolds toward products with higher structural complexity and chemical diversity, but their discovery remains challenging. Now, an Escherichia coli -based gene screening platform enables high-throughput bacterial CYP screening, leading to efficient and diverse terpenoid biosynthesis.

A better understanding of the mechanism of electrochemical CO₂ reduction should enable development of electrocatalysts that are more active and selective. Now, through an isotopic labelling strategy, it has been discovered that there are at least two types of active sites on Cu electrocatalysts, one responsible for converting CO₂ to CO and another for further converting CO to useful C₂₊ products.

Selective electrochemical oxidation of ammonia provides an ideal pathway to synthesize hydrazine, but this process is outcompeted by a more favourable overoxidation to N₂. A molecular ruthenium catalyst has now flipped the script, circumventing the thermodynamic challenges to selectively generate hydrazine.

CRISPR-Cas9 is a major gene-editing tool that has attracted tremendous interdisciplinary efforts to ameliorate precise genome manipulation. Now, the pivotal structural features behind concerted double-stranded DNA cleavages by the Cas9 endonuclease have been captured through cryo-electron microscopy, laying the groundwork for improved Cas9 engineering.

The selective oxidation of methane to methanol using O₂ under mild conditions has been a challenge for decades. Now, this transformation is selectively achieved at ambient temperature with productivity as high as 67.4 μmol g_cat⁻¹ h⁻¹ on a reduced phosphomolybdate catalyst, where H₂ is required to keep the catalyst surface in a reduced state.

Understanding the structure–performance relationships of heterogeneous catalysts is of fundamental importance for their deployment in industry. However, gaps exist between the conditions and catalytic materials commonly employed in laboratory studies and those encountered in practical reactors. This Perspective highlights the importance of recognizing such gaps, with the goal to inform the planning of academic research and maximize its impact.

The electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to high-value multicarbon products is very desirable, but also fraught with immense complexity in process design. A twist in tuning product yields in this reaction could be based on water activity.

The electrochemical reduction of CO₂ in strong acids is difficult. Now a strategy utilizing immobilized cations significantly enhances system stability and efficiency, opening up avenues for optimized CO₂ conversion to C₂ products.

The valorization of methane into oxygenated products has long intrigued the catalysis community, however, progress in the field is disparate and practical implementation remains elusive. This Review discusses recent advances in the area using performance indicators that reveal the gaps between academic investigations and industrial methane utilization and highlight possibilities for further developments.

Enzymes are capable of controlling the reactivity and selectivity of catalytic mechanisms involving highly reactive intermediates. Now, flavine mononucleotide-dependent ene-reductases have been repurposed as photobiocatalysts for generating and taming unstable N-centred radicals, enabling their application in asymmetric radical C–N couplings.

Progress in the field of photocatalytic CO₂ reduction has been constrained by a lack of comparability between studies. This Perspective provides recommendations for best practices in the undertaking and reporting of experimental data in this promising research area.

Directed evolution has been extensively used to develop enzymes with enhanced properties, but there are limited examples of diverting key intermediates in catalytic cycles down alternative pathways. Now, a cytochrome P450 variant with promiscuous catalytic activity has been repurposed into a ketone synthase for the catalytic aerobic oxidation of internal alkenes to ketones.

Ethylene glycol is traditionally manufactured through energy-intensive thermocatalytic processes. Now, in a marked advance, a cascade catalytic system using electrochemically synthesized H₂O₂ for ethylene oxidation has been introduced. This strategy represents a benchmark for sustainable chemical manufacturing.

Catalytic pyrolysis is a promising process for the valorization of biomass and plastic waste, although several aspects related to its practical utilization remain unexplored. This Perspective revisits the salient features of catalytic pyrolysis, identifying a roadmap to advance the application of this technology at commercial scale.

The chlor-alkali industry is one of the largest global electricity consumers. In the 1970s, the discovery of dimensionally stable anodes (DSAs) allowed for drastic savings in electricity consumption. The fundamental reasons behind the effectiveness of DSAs, however, were only clarified decades later.

The d-band model was proposed by Bjørk Hammer and Jens Nørskov almost 30 years ago to explain trends in the interaction of adsorbates with transition-metal surfaces. It remains a cornerstone in heterogeneous catalysis research and has inspired a wealth of later models.

Scientific research on human insulin was a crucial development in medicine, and its discovery led to the treatment of diabetes, one of the most prevalent global chronic diseases. A seminal work published in 1979 describing recombinant DNA technology to produce human insulin through biocatalysis has resulted in this field’s establishment and routine industrial applications.

The conditions employed for alkane dehydrogenation reactions are usually detrimental for catalyst stability. Now, subnanometre Pt clusters stabilized by the Ge-enriched double four-membered-ring units in a UTL-type zeolite structure show exceptionally high stability for this important transformation.

Linear polyethylene and isotactic polypropylene, the two largest-volume polymers on the market, were invented in the 1950s thanks to diverse mixes of serendipity, intuition and talent. After 70 years, a thoughtful revisitation of those ground-breaking discoveries can still be revealing and inspirational.