Research articles

Hydrogenation is one of the most common catalytic processes on both laboratory and industrial scales, and typically is carried out with a noble metal catalyst. Here, the authors show that alkaline earth metal amides are capable of hydrogenating imines under mild conditions.

Lignocellulose is produced in large amounts as waste but offers the potential of cheap, renewable sources of organic compounds. Here, a process is shown that can derive useful products from all the main components of lignocellulose, giving complete conversion and thus enabling integrated catalyst recycling.

The generation of useful chemicals from CO₂ and renewable energy is an attractive—but challenging—endeavour. This work reports on the long-term operation of commercial electrodes for efficient CO₂ reduction, with subsequent fermentation of the syngas product completing the technical photosynthesis of alcohols.

Atomically dispersed metal catalysts are of increasing importance in many catalytic processes, but clear structural identification is challenging. Here, a general synthesis of metal (nickel, iron and cobalt) single-atom catalysts on nitrogen-doped graphene allows the authors to identify a common structure and furthermore correlate structure with electrocatalytic activity.

Peroxygenases can selectively functionalize organic compounds, but are sensitive to the co-substrate H₂O₂. Hollmann and co-workers show that water oxidation catalysts can provide a controlled supply of H₂O₂ to the enzyme in the presence of visible light, allowing efficient oxyfunctionalization without stoichiometric reductants.

During photosynthesis, nature uses an enzyme with a manganese–calcium core for water oxidation. Here, the authors report the synthesis of a stable, water-soluble manganese cluster that acts as a homogeneous water oxidation electrocatalyst, displaying low overpotential and high Faradaic efficiency.

Bioethanol-based alkylation of benzene is a potentially sustainable route to commodity chemicals, but there is little knowledge of the reaction mechanism. Here, Weckhuysen and co-workers study the zeolite catalysed alkylation of benzene with ethanol, identifying the active alkylating agent and experimentally show the presence of a σ-complex intermediate.

Biocatalysis, if selective, offers great potential for the well-controlled release of drugs and other payloads. Here, Minko and co-workers separate enzymes and substrates by loading them onto individual, polymer-coated nanoparticles, and show that a magnetic field switches on the catalytic activity by merging the polymer shells.