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Identifying and estimating operative timescales can help win over a skeptical referee, as Tom Dursch recounts.

Modeling chemical processes and systems underpins progress in chemical engineering science; we encourage submissions in this domain.

Jennifer Curtis from the University of California Davis talks to Nature Chemical Engineering about her path into particle technology, work in computational simulations of multiphase particle flows and the importance of industrial collaborations in advancing the field.

Decarbonizing the steel industry is crucial but challenging. Now, an enzymatic method is introduced for converting carbon monoxide from industrial off-gases into formate, offering a path towards carbon-neutral steel production. The enzymatic process achieves high selectivity, and operation of a 10-liter-scale reactor with real industrial emissions indicates its scalability and practical applicability.

With the global climate crisis, approaches to capture emissions are critical, with the heavy industry sector being particularly challenging to decarbonize. The authors describe a new enzyme cascade for converting industrial emissions into formate salts as a hydrogen carrier or building block for chemicals.

Accurately modeling CO₂ electroreduction is key to advancing the technology and understanding its productivity and CO₂ utilization trends. Now, Marcus–Hush–Chidsey theory offers accurate predictions of experimental results, leading to further insights beyond reaction kinetics.

The design of CO₂ electrolyzers is complicated by coupled transport and reaction phenomena. Here the authors develop a continuum model incorporating physical phenomena across multiple scales to predict the activity and selectivity of CO₂ electrolysis, along with the loss of CO₂ due to crossover in membrane electrode assemblies.

Transitioning to more sustainable chemicals will require the challenging replacement of fossil resources with renewable carbon and energy sources in their production. Now, integrating industrial sectors offers an interim solution to mitigate emissions in the chemical industry until technologies for closing the carbon loop can be deployed at scale.

Wastes can be leveraged for decarbonization, provided we know how to think about them, argues Corinne D. Scown.

Crystallization plays a pivotal role in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. This Comment briefly reflects on past achievements and emerging opportunities in industrial crystallization, particularly considering increasing molecular and system complexities.

Achieving a net-zero future requires that hard-to-abate sectors be addressed. Co-production offers an opportunity to mitigate chemical and steel sector emissions by extracting H₂ and CO from steelmaking off-gas and using them for chemical syntheses. The authors examine carbon mitigation and costs of co-producing chemicals and steel in China.

Real-life plastic waste exists as complex mixtures, posing a challenge for efficient upcycling. Now a sunlight-powered thermocatalytic process using a Ni-based catalyst converts a plastic mixture into CH₄, H₂O and HCl. Notably, chlorine poisoning is minimized through temperature modulation driven by the diurnal sunlight cycle.

Electrification endows modern separation processes with the capability to tackle a broader array of challenges using potentially sustainable energy resources.

An appreciation of characteristic timescales can save quite a lot of effort, as Ian Wilson explains.

Junwang Tang and Binhang Yan discuss the role of the Industrial Catalysis Center at Tsinghua University and their perspectives on modern industrial catalysis with Nature Chemical Engineering.