Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Tensile strain of a solid surface can result in either strengthening or weakening of bonds with adsorbates. Adsorption energies of different adsorbate/site combinations may be shifted in different directions — a striking violation of the Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi relation.
Solvents are used pervasively in catalytic studies to enhance kinetics and selectivities. Now, the analysis of biomass upgrading has been remarkably simplified by elucidating the solvation effects of dehydration for key compounds with solvent-enabled control of reactivity.
Fluctuations in the composition of reactant gas mixtures often lead to activity and selectivity variations in automotive catalysts. Now, time-resolved operando spectroscopy sheds light on the transient changes of surface species for a commercially applied catalyst and leads to process optimization.
Lyases are enzymes that catalyse the breaking of chemical bonds. Now, reversing this reaction towards carbon–nitrogen bond formation allows for the synthesis of various chiral aminocarboxylic acids such as the potential antibiotic co-drug aspergillomarasmine A.
Ammonia synthesis is an energy-intensive process due to the high activation barrier for N2 dissociation, which is the rate-determining step on conventional catalysts. Now, a ternary intermetallic catalyst is reported to be capable of catalysing this reaction through an alternative pathway.
Understanding the fundamentals of a catalytic process remains an intellectual challenge. Now, a method has been developed that can discriminate mass transport phenomena from reaction kinetics at the single-molecule and single-particle levels.
Selective, electrochemical transformation of carbon dioxide into industrially relevant C2+ products has remained a challenge. Now, a copper-based ‘nanoneedle’ electrocatalyst has been used to selectively convert carbon dioxide to ethylene at extremely high current density.
Given the abundance of amines in pharmaceutical substances, new strategies for the formation of C–N bonds are highly sought after. Now, using a dual photoredox–copper catalysis system, a method for amine synthesis has been developed.
In nature, a manganese catalyst is used for photosynthetic water oxidation, but efforts to develop artificial manganese-based counterparts have been hampered by the lability of manganese complexes. By using a bulky and hydrophilic ligand, a water-soluble Mn12 complex is found to be a stable and efficient water oxidation electrocatalyst.
Most electrochemical CO2 reduction research has been confined to fundamental studies that attempt to understand how to overcome low selectivity and energy efficiency for valuable oxygenated products. Now, a modular, scalable system generates multi-carbon oxygenates with a potential solar-to-alcohol efficiency of more than 8%.
Electrophilic substitution of aromatics on zeolites is generally assumed to occur through the Wheland-type intermediate, although direct experimental evidence is lacking. Now, this carbenium ion has been identified as a stable intermediate in the alkylation of benzene with ethanol on an industrial zeolite catalyst.
