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Aqueous zinc-ion batteries are attractive due to their low cost, environmental friendliness, and exceptional performance, but the latter remains poorly understood. Now, a fast catalytic step involved in oxygen redox catalysis is shown to contribute to capacity at a high rate.
Unravelling the key parameters that govern the activity of oxygen evolution reaction catalysts is an essential step towards efficient production of green hydrogen. Now, the repulsion between adsorbates on the electrocatalyst surface has been identified as a powerful promoter for the rate-limiting O–O coupling step.
There is no doubt that identifying active sites at the atomic scale for designing optimal catalysts is a great challenge. Now, by combining computational and experimental results, an advanced methodology is proposed for understanding the structure–activity relationship at the atomic level.
A combination of an iron(ii)-catalyst and a hydroxylammonium salt enables the direct and selective conversion of an inert aromatic C–H bond to a valuable, unprotected amine functionality. This approach solves a long standing challenge in modern synthesis.
Rational design of improved electrocatalysts requires a profound understanding of the catalyst’s active sites during the reaction. However, molecule conversion occurs on the few-nanometre scale and operando tools for simultaneous nanoscale chemical, electronic and structural investigation are scarce. Now, the geometric and electronic creation and evolution of individual active sites during the hydrogen evolution reaction on MoS2 has been unravelled using electrochemical tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.
Platinum-free electrocatalysts for anion exchange membrane fuel cells and water electrolysers are required to improve the techno-economic viability of these electrochemical technologies for the sustainable production and use of hydrogen. Modifying the electronic structure of Li-intercalated layered Mn-oxides via Ru doping resulted in a catalyst displaying impressive performance towards both technologies.
The understanding of protein evolution is a central challenge in biology. Now, the evolution of a β-lactamase in vitro reveals that the total effect of mutations can change the rate-limiting step of the catalytic mechanism.
The future of bioproduction lies in efficient C1 utilization. Methanol derived from CO2 can be fed to engineered bacteria that convert it into platform chemicals currently produced from fossil fuels. Now, recent results confirm we are getting closer.
Gut microbes have enzymes that break down the heavily glycosylated mucin protein of host animals, but known enzymes recognize only one glycan chain. Now, bioinformatic exploration has uncovered a family of mucinases that targets dense sugar residues.
Malonyl-CoA is one of the fundamental building blocks for the synthesis of industrially or pharmaceutically important chemicals, but its biosynthesis via the innate acetyl-CoA carboxylation pathway remains slow and inefficient. Now, an artificial non-carboxylative malonyl-CoA biosynthetic pathway has been developed, significantly enhancing malonyl-CoA supply by boosting carbon and energy efficiency while sidestepping the inhibitions by host cell regulations.
Ethylene, despite being a cornerstone of the modern petrochemical industry, continues to pose challenges during its production. Now, a dual single-atom catalyst design emerges as a remarkable solution for the efficient semi-hydrogenation of acetylene.
The development of bimetallic catalysts is often hindered by the heavy workload of the classical trial-and-error method. Now, a distinct mechanism demonstrates that breaking down the net thermochemical reaction into the corresponding electrochemical half-reactions offers a facile approach to design bimetallic catalysts by analysing each putative half-reaction.
While skeletal editing stands as a powerful approach for simplifying synthetic procedures and obtaining complex molecules, viable methodologies remain limited. Now, a smart photoredox protocol, involving the insertion of carbon atoms into the indene core, gives access to a wide library of functionalized naphthalenes.
The lack of stability of critical raw material-free electrocatalysts during the oxygen evolution reaction in acidic electrolytes lies beneath the use of Ir-based electrocatalysts in polymeric water electrolysis. Here, a strategy to enhance γ-MnO2 stability in acid is proposed. Theoretical and spectroscopic approaches reveal that increasing the fraction of O atoms in the appropriate position, namely Opla, prevents Mn dissolution during water electrolysis.
The coenzyme Q biosynthetic pathway has evaded full characterization for decades, in part due to the inherent insolubility of coenzyme Q and the instability of its membrane-associated biosynthetic enzymes. Now, researchers have resurrected an active ancestral coenzyme Q metabolon in vitro that has unveiled valuable insights into previously uncharacterized aspects of coenzyme Q biosynthesis.
A deeper understanding of reaction mechanisms should lead to improvements in the selectivity of organic electrosynthesis methods. This approach has now been used to explain the role of magnesium diacetate in the Ag-electrocatalysed reductive coupling of sp3 organic chlorides with aldehydes or ketones with increased selectivity for the desired alcohol product.
Chiral BINOL-phosphates have qualified as privileged Brønsted acid organocatalysts, providing solutions to many challenging enantioselective transformations for a wide range of substrates under mild reaction conditions. Here we revisit the story of their origins.
The ab initio atomistic thermodynamics approach, coined by Reuter and Scheffler formally in 2001, remains pivotal for understanding and predicting the stable surfaces of thermal catalysts under technical conditions.
Traditional catalyst synthesis primarily hinges on liquid-phase methods. Nevertheless, a quarter of a century ago, the advent of vapour-phase methods such as atomic layer deposition opened up important alternatives to atomically tailor catalysts and boost their performance.
Electrocatalysis would not be the same without the rotating disk electrode. Its invention in the mid-twentieth century enabled immense developments, which rendered it a classic technique in electrochemistry. The rotating disk electrode will remain a cornerstone of electrocatalysis with further advances that bridge the gap with real systems.