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Electrochemical CO2 conversion to hydrocarbons has increasingly improved with the development of better catalysts. Now, a copper catalyst modified with a polymer boosts the selectivity for ethylene production to 87%.
Single-atom catalysts can exhibit improved catalytic performance with respect to their bulk counterparts. Now, the authors introduce a yolk@shell catalyst with spatially separated Pd and Fe single sites that simultaneously catalyse nitroaromatic hydrogenation and alkene epoxidation reactions, leading to a cascade synthesis of amino alcohols.
The coupling of aryl halides and arylboronic acids is generally performed by metal-catalysed Suzuki–Miyaura reactions while metal-free approaches remain elusive. Here an organocatalytic approach based on amine catalysts is introduced for the preparation of commercially relevant asymmetric biaryls.
Multi-element oxide catalysts can feature superior properties compared with their single-element analogues but obtaining such complex structures remains a challenge. Here, a method is reported to access single-phase denary nanoparticles as stable and efficient catalysts for the combustion of methane.
As Ni(ii) complexes are generally considered inert toward O2, their utilization for catalytic oxygenation reactions is extremely rare. Here, the authors introduce an electrocatalytic method for the oxidation of sulfides based on bipyridine complexes of simple Ni(ii) salts using water as the oxygen source.
Despite over a century of research to understand heterogeneous electrocatalysis, the precise mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. Now, it is proposed that the oxygen evolution reaction on IrOx is driven by changes in the redox state of the Ir–O active sites, rather than by changes in the interfacial electric field.
Biological CO2 fixation is restricted to few enzymes and pathways, limiting its value in environmental protection and agricultural productivity. Now, a new-to-nature CO2-fixing enzyme allows CO2-dependent assimilation of glycolate in a designed pathway, and its use for different applications is demonstrated.
General methods to regioselectively introduce both amine and alcohol functionalities into alkene substrates to afford 1,2-aminoalcohols in a single step are lacking. Now, this has been addressed by a metal-free photosensitization strategy using oxime carbonate as a suitable bifunctional reagent.
Biocatalytic methods are lacking in current computer-aided synthesis planning tools. Now, RetroBioCat allows computer-aided design of biocatalytic cascades for organic synthesis and synthetic biology. The program was validated using reported cascades and is freely available at retrobiocat.com.