Browse Articles

DNA has emerged as an attractive substrate for molecular information processing. This Review explores the application of DNA for computing and data storage, as well as the route to integrate these fields.

This Review introduces solar reforming as an emerging technology to produce sustainable fuels and chemicals from diverse waste feedstocks using sunlight. The chemistry and concept of solar reforming, suggestions of key metrics and proposed directions to realize solar-powered refineries for a future circular economy are discussed.

Providing a stable and reliable supply of electrons is crucial for the future of quantum computing processors. Here, electron withdrawing groups are added to species which improve the flow of electrons.

This Review highlights the strategies and challenges for targeting RNA with small molecules in medicinal chemistry. It emphasizes their potential as drugs and tools for understanding complex biological processes while encouraging chemists to contribute to this field for future advances.

Performing logical operations with molecular excitons may provide opportunities for developing ultrafast, subnanometre and biocompatible computational architectures. This Roadmap outlines a framework for using multiexcitonic processes such as singlet fission and triplet–triplet annihilation to drive logical devices.

The reduction of molecular species containing arene to alkali metal cation interactions with other alkali metals has been found to contradict the expectation provided by simple considerations of relative reduction potentials.

By drawing inspiration from ion transport in biology, researchers have developed highly selective channels for the separation and enrichment of Li⁺ ions from complex aqueous solutions.

The European BorderSens project leverages voltammetric sensors, developed with end-users’ input, to rapidly and accurately detect illicit drugs. By embracing practicalities and validation, this technology has the potential to combat the illicit drug problem.

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases are key enzymes in biomass processing and pathogenicity. They are, to our knowledge, the first known copper enzymes capable of utilizing H₂O₂ to hydroxylate C–H bonds. This Review draws a portrait of the catalytic paths at play and highlights outstanding questions in their reactivity.

Thirty-four years ago, Curry and Rumelhart described a neural network-based approach to annotate tandem mass spectra. Their ideas foreshadowed several important developments in computational mass spectrometry over the past decade, but many of the challenges they discuss remain relevant today.

A route to synthetically interesting axially chiral diaryl ethers combines an asymmetric desymmetrization and a kinetic resolution.

Cable bacteria are able to conduct electrons to interconvert oxygen and water. Here, researchers have isolated the conducting cable bacteria skeletons to demonstrate their activity in an electrochemical cell.

If intense ionizing radiation was present at a time of prebiotic life, protocells would have needed protection. Researchers have shown that peptide-containing coacervates can harbour DNA strands, which can then be coated with Mn-containing coacervates protecting the interior from radiation.

The total biosynthesis and engineering of complex natural products is now routinely achieved in filamentous fungal host organisms. This technology offers substantial advantages over traditional total chemical synthesis for the production of both known and new specialized metabolites.

Molecular chameleons adapt their conformations to the properties of the environment so that polar functionalities are dynamically shielded or exposed. This allows chameleons to display both high cell permeability and aqueous solubility, and to bind to their drug targets.

A decade ago, Zaworotko and co-workers engaged the principles of crystal engineering to demonstrate that narrow-pore (<0.7 nm) coordination networks are ideal sorbent platforms for small-molecule sorbates. This approach transformed sorbent design for such separations and has provided several performance benchmarks in trace gas capture-enabled purifications.

Stochastic processes, including chemical reactions, can be driven away from thermodynamic equilibrium through ratchet mechanisms. This Review explores how biology uses ratchets to achieve remarkable synthetic control and discusses the recognition of, and early progress in, ratchet-like synthesis in artificial systems.

This Review provides guidelines for electrolyte and interphase design and discusses LiF-rich interphases with high interfacial energies, high mechanical strength and high ionic:electronic conductivity ratios, which enable the construction of a wide range of highly stable, safe and energy-dense battery systems with fast-charging capabilities.

To mark the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities we have launched a collection on chemists with disabilities. Within diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in science, this is a topic that is often overlooked.