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In their work, Thomas Lunkenbein, Luis Sandoval-Diaz and colleagues study the dry reforming of methane on a nickel catalyst with in situ techniques, which reveal oscillatory kinetics through atomic surface oxygen, subsurface oxygen and bulk nickel oxide phases, with markedly different catalytic properties.
Correlating structure and activity is a very important research goal in catalysis. This Editorial reflects on this topic, taking inspiration from examples in the current issue.
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.
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.
C–C bond formation involving sp3 centres has typically relied on stoichiometric reagents. Here catalytic Ag electrodes modified with Mg(OAc)2 enable electrocatalytic coupling of an organic halide with an aldehyde for the selective formation of a broad scope of alcohol products.
The generation of Fischer-type carbene complexes for organic synthesis usually requires stoichiometric amounts of metal. Now the palladium-catalysed formation of a Fischer-type carbene intermediate for the synthesis of β-lactam derivatives is described and its crystal structure is solved.
Single metal atom catalysts on N-doped carbon supports are promising materials to replace Pt as cathode catalysts in fuel cells. Now a transient voltammetry method is applied to extract the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of the oxygen reduction reaction on an iron phthalocyanine model catalyst.
Coenzyme Q has several important biological functions, but the understanding of the biosynthesis of coenzyme Q in humans remains incomplete. Now, by constructing the entire COQ metabolon in vitro, the enzymes and reactions underlying coenzyme Q biosynthesis are characterized.
Heterogeneous catalysts are often dynamic under operation. Now, the mechanism of CH4 dry reforming on Ni is studied by in situ microscopy and spectroscopy, revealing the formation of metastable surface nickel–oxygen structures from CO2 dissociation that exhibit different catalytic properties and induce rate oscillations.
Multiple parameters are generally responsible for the reactivity of particulate catalysts, although nanoparticle proximity is often neglected. Here the authors report the impact of such structural factor using the hydrogenation of benzaldehyde over PdAu nanoparticles supported on macroporous SiO2 as the probe reaction.
Axial chirality is a key element in many valuable compounds, such as ligands in organic chemistry or pharmaceuticals. Now the catalytic atroposelective synthesis of acyclic 1,3-dienes by chiral phosphoric acid-catalysed bromination is described, expanding the chemical space of axially chiral compounds.
Photocatalytic H2O2 production from water and air is limited by the availability of these substrates and charge carriers at the catalytic sites. Here a donor–acceptor covalent organic framework acts as a supply chain for the delivery of charge, water and oxygen, resulting in 17.5% quantum efficiency under visible light irradiation.
In 2018 a descriptor was put forward to correlate the activity of various electrocatalytic reactions on carbon-based single-atom catalysts, but some data the work was based on were later found to be incorrect. This work revisits and amends the original 2018 study while presenting a modified version of the φ descriptor.