Catalyst synthesis articles from across Nature Portfolio

Water electrolysis can produce clean hydrogen, but it is limited by the slow anodic oxygen evolution reaction. Now, a local electronic manipulation strategy for stabilizing high-valence Ru single site catalysts has been developed. The catalyst demonstrates efficient bifunctional activity for water electrolysis.

Achieving efficient carbon chain propagation remains a grand challenge for ethanol upgrading. Here, the authors report sulfur doped Ni@C-Sx catalysts with controllably exposed nickel sites that can dramatically improve direct-growth probability towards long-chain alcohols production.

Plasmonic composites have potential for photocatalytic conversions using solar light; however, complex interactions between light and the components are poorly understood. Here, a highly ordered two-dimensional plasmonic bimetallic AuPt supercrystal demonstrates a high rate of H₂ generation from formic acid while providing insight into the interaction between plasmonic antenna and catalyst.

Ligands capable of accelerating and inducing enantioselectivity in C–H activations with base metal catalysts have remained elusive. Here, the authors report a ligand-accelerated enantioselective C–H alknylation, using a chiral BINOL ligand with a copper catalyst.

Controlling molecular interactions on metal surfaces for selective chemical synthesis remains difficult to achieve. Here, we report thin, porous covalent organic overlayers on metal nanocrystals to improve selectivity through plasmonic activation.

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.

Deuterated compounds are used in many applications such as mass-spectrometry standards, drugs or in organic light-emitting diodes. Now, hydrogen-activated homogeneous pincer complex catalysts can be used to perform selective alkene deuteration with the cheapest available deuterium source, D₂O.

Urea, a crucial nitrogen fertilizer, plays a vital role in meeting global food demand. However, its current production method is energy-intensive and environmentally unfriendly. In this commentary article, the authors propose strategies to address and overcome these challenges.

It is challenging to design alloy nanocrystals with complex but homogeneous configurations. Now, a direct solution-phase synthesis is reported which can incorporate different alloy configurations into one nanoparticle. The nanoparticles, with atomically precise catalytic sites, are demonstrated as highly active and cost-effective catalysts.