Catalysis articles within Nature

Featured

  • Perspective |

    Efforts to find renewable alternatives to fossil fuels that might enable a carbon-neutral society by 2050 are described, as well as outlining a possible roadmap towards a refinery of the future and evaluating its requirements.

    • Eelco T. C. Vogt
    •  & Bert M. Weckhuysen

  • Article |

    A completely genetically encoded boronic-acid-containing designer enzyme was created and characterized using X-ray crystallography, high-resolution mass spectrometry and 11B NMR spectroscopy, allowing chemistry that is unknown in nature and currently not possible with small-molecule catalysts.

    • Lars Longwitz
    • , Reuben B. Leveson-Gower
    •  & Gerard Roelfes

  • Article |

    Rhodium catalysts confined in zeolite pores exhibit high regioselectivity in the hydroformylation process of propene to high-value n-butanal, surpassing the performance of all heterogeneous and most homogeneous catalysts developed so far.

    • Xiangjie Zhang
    • , Tao Yan
    •  & Zhi Cao

  • Research Briefing |

    An innovative solid-state lithiation strategy allows the exfoliation of layered transition-metal tellurides into nanosheets in an unprecedentedly short time, without sacrificing their quality. The observation of physical phenomena typically seen in highly crystalline TMT nanosheets opens the way to their use in applications such as batteries and micro-supercapacitors.

  • Article |

    We report a strategy that yields thermally and hydrothermally stable silicates by expansion of a one-dimensional silicate chain with an intercalated silylating agent that separates and connects the chains.

    • Zihao Rei Gao
    • , Huajian Yu
    •  & Miguel A. Camblor

  • Article |

    Use of a chain-ether-based solvent instead of tetrahydrofuran for lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction enables long-term continuous ammonia electrosynthesis with high efficiency and improved gas-phase ammonia distribution.

    • Shaofeng Li
    • , Yuanyuan Zhou
    •  & Ib Chorkendorff

  • Research Briefing |

    Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide holds promise for converting CO2 into valuable products but is hampered by stability issues and wasted carbon. A proton-exchange membrane that uses lead as a catalyst demonstrates the feasibility of durable and efficient CO2 reduction.

  • Article |

    We use bimolecular homolytic substitution catalysis to sort an electrophilic radical and a nucleophilic radical across an unactivated alkene, accelerating access to pharmaceutically relevant C(sp3)-rich molecules and defining a mechanistic approach for alkene dialkylation.

    • Johnny Z. Wang
    • , William L. Lyon
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Article |

    We investigate the mechanism underlying the sulfur reduction reaction that plays a central role in high-capacity lithium sulfur batteries, highlighting the electrocatalytic approach as a promising strategy for tackling the fundamental challenges associated with these batteries.

    • Rongli Liu
    • , Ziyang Wei
    •  & Xiangfeng Duan

  • Article |

    We develop a proton-exchange membrane system that reduces CO2 to formic acid at a catalyst that is derived from waste lead–acid batteries and in which a lattice carbon activation mechanism contributes.

    • Wensheng Fang
    • , Wei Guo
    •  & Bao Yu Xia

  • Research Briefing |

    The Haber–Bosch process for making ammonia has been world-changing, but is highly energy-intensive owing to the high temperatures and pressures involved. A detailed understanding of the catalytic steps that occur in the basic reactions, and what limits them, opens the way to developing greener versions of the process.

  • Research Briefing |

    Medium- and high-entropy alloys are hugely promising materials in metallurgy and catalysis, but their atomic-scale structure — and how that relates to their properties — is not well understood. A powerful method is beginning to reveal their secrets, with hopes for engineering better materials in the future.

  • Article |

    Enzyme-bound ketyl radicals derived from thiamine diphosphate are selectively generated through single-electron oxidation by a photoexcited organic dye and shown to lead to enantioselective radical acylation reactions.

    • Yuanyuan Xu
    • , Hongwei Chen
    •  & Xiaoqiang Huang

  • Article |

    A new method is described that uses arenium-ion-catalysed halodealkylation of silanes with four alkyl groups, typically considered synthetic dead ends, to convert Me4Si and related quaternary silanes into orthogonally substituted (functionalized) silanes.

    • Tao He
    • , Hendrik F. T. Klare
    •  & Martin Oestreich

  • Article |

    We report a radical-based Ni/Ag-electrocatalytic cross-coupling of substituted carboxylic acids, enabling an approach to accessing complex molecular architectures, which relies on a silver additive that forms an active Ag nanoparticle-coated electrode surface along with carefully chosen ligands.

    • Benxiang Zhang
    • , Jiayan He
    •  & Phil S. Baran

  • Article |

    We report the production of MoS2 nanosheets with high phase purity, showing that the 2H-phase templates facilitate epitaxial growth of Pt nanoparticles, whereas the 1T′ phase supports single-atomically dispersed Pt atoms.

    • Zhenyu Shi
    • , Xiao Zhang
    •  & Hua Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We report a small-organic-molecule oscillator that catalyses an independent chemical reaction in situ without impairing its oscillating properties, allowing the construction of complex systems enhancing applications in automated synthesis and systems and polymerization chemistry.

    • Matthijs ter Harmsel
    • , Oliver R. Maguire
    •  & Syuzanna R. Harutyunyan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Irradiation of chiral Al-salen complexes with violet light demonstrates efficient deracemization of cyclopropanes, enabling reactivity and enantioselectivity to be regulated simultaneously, negating the requirement for tailored catalyst–substrate recognition motifs.

    • Carina Onneken
    • , Tobias Morack
    •  & Ryan Gilmour

  • Article |

    A self-adjustive catalytic system with nickel under visible-light-driven redox reaction conditions provides a general method for carbon–(hetero)atom cross-coupling reactions and is demonstrated for nine different bond-forming reactions.

    • Indrajit Ghosh
    • , Nikita Shlapakov
    •  & Burkhard König

  • Research Briefing |

    A minimal but general method has been developed for catalysing many different cross-coupling reactions — those in which two chemical fragments are joined. It requires only the two substrate substances, a nickel salt as a catalyst precursor, a catalyst for light-driven redox reactions and, in some cases, a nitrogen-containing base.

  • Article |

    Quinuclidine-pyridone and sulfonamide-pyridone ligands enable transannular γ-methylene C–H arylation of cycloalkane carboxylic acids with a range of ring sizes, bringing us closer to molecular editing of saturated carbocycles.

    • Guowei Kang
    • , Daniel A. Strassfeld
    •  & Jin-Quan Yu

  • Outlook |

    Photocatalysis using light-emitting diodes could reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by industrial chemical processes.

    • Neil Savage

  • Article |

    The authors identify a dynamic site renewal and decay cycle, mediated by proton transfers involving proximal Brønsted acidic OH groups, which operates concurrently with the Chauvin cycle and could address roadblocks associated with industrial metathesis processes.

    • Terry Z. H. Gani
    • , Zachariah J. Berkson
    •  & Yuriy Román-Leshkov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report a transition-metal-catalysed protocol for recovery of polymer building block bisphenol  A and intact fibres from epoxy composites, demonstrating that chemical recycling approaches for thermoset epoxy resins and composites are achievable.

    • Alexander Ahrens
    • , Andreas Bonde
    •  & Troels Skrydstrup

  • Research Briefing |

    A catalyst with a hydrophobic cavity that contains an active iron centre has been developed to convert methane into methanol. It has a ‘catch-and-release’ mechanism whereby a hydrophobic methane molecule enters the cavity for oxidation and the resulting hydrophilic methanol molecule is released into the surrounding aqueous solution.

  • Article |

    Methane can be oxidized to methanol using N-heterocyclic carbene-ligated FeII complexes, in which the hydrophobic cavity captures the methane substrate from an aqueous solution and releases the hydrophilic methanol product back into the solution.

    • Hiroto Fujisaki
    • , Tomoya Ishizuka
    •  & Takahiko Kojima

  • Article |

    The enantioconvergent alkylation of oxygen nucleophiles is achieved using α-haloamides and a readily available copper catalyst, and the reaction proceeds under mild conditions in the presence of a wide variety of functional groups.

    • Caiyou Chen
    •  & Gregory C. Fu

  • Article |

    The chemoselective and enantioconvergent N-alkylation of aliphatic amines, including ammonia, is achieved using chiral tridentate anionic ligands and a copper catalyst; the method shows excellent enantioselectivity and functional-group tolerance.

    • Ji-Jun Chen
    • , Jia-Heng Fang
    •  & Xin-Yuan Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An unsymmetric, strong and confined chiral acid, a highly fluorinated imino-imidodiphosphate, catalyses the selective conversion of neral to (1R,6S)-trans-isopiperitenol, enabling sustainable routes to menthol and cannabinoids.

    • Joyce A. A. Grimm
    • , Hui Zhou
    •  & Benjamin List

  • Research Briefing |

    Silicon nanowires that can convert light into electricity were engineered to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When integrated with co-catalysts and suspended in water, these light-activated nanoreactors produced hydrogen gas under visible and infrared light.

  • News & Views |

    A light-activated ‘plasmonic’ catalyst, made from abundant elements, produces as much hydrogen from ammonia as do the most-used heat-activated catalysts based on a rarer element, suggesting a strategy for sustainable chemical production.

    • Emiliano Cortés

  • News & Views |

    The study of how chemical reactions work is key to the design of new reactions, but relies on hard work and expert knowledge. A machine-learning tool has been developed that could change the way this challenge is approached.

    • Danilo M. Lustosa
    •  & Anat Milo

  • Article |

    Mechanistic elucidation through currently available kinetic analysis is limited by mathematical approximations and human interpretation, here a deep neural network model has been trained to analyse ordinary kinetic data and automatically elucidate the corresponding mechanism class.

    • Jordi Burés
    •  & Igor Larrosa

  • Article |

    Installation of multiple C–O bonds by concurrent oxygenation of contiguous C–H bonds in a selective fashion is highly desirable, and this is achieved by repeated operation of a potent oxidative catalyst via electrophotocatalysis.

    • Tao Shen
    • , Yi-Lun Li
    •  & Tristan H. Lambert

  • Research Briefing |

    Single atoms of platinum-group metals are excellent catalysts, but they tend to aggregate and lose their activity during chemical reactions. We used nanoislands of cerium oxide, peppered through the interior surfaces of high-surface-area porous oxide supports, to confine and stabilize single atoms of these expensive metals, turning them into efficient and long-lasting catalysts.

  • Article |

    Nanometre-sized ‘nanoglue’ islands of CeOx on high-surface-area SiO2 are shown to suppress sintering and confine on average one Pt atom per island, leading to stable single-atom catalysts under oxidizing and reducing environments.

    • Xu Li
    • , Xavier Isidro Pereira-Hernández
    •  & Jingyue Liu

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