catalysis

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-77519-8 Understanding catalytic dynamics at electrochemical interfaces is important, while reactions at individual particles remain difficult to observe. Here, the authors report an operando electrochemiluminescence microscopy approach to visualize nitrate reduction processes and monitor apparent kinetics.

By engineering oxygen vacancies in indium oxide, we uncover a non-noble-metal plasmonic catalyst that harvests near-infrared light and promotes methanol steam reforming through coupled photothermal and hot-carrier effects.

KAIST and Samsung Electronics have developed a new, long-lasting catalyst based on ‘entropy stabilization,’ a principle in which mixing multiple metal atoms together actually stabilizes the catalyst’s structure. The post KAIST Tames a Semiconductor Greenhouse Gas 6,000 Times More Potent than CO₂ with the ‘Power of Disorder’ appeared first on Semiconductor Digest .

Nature Communications, Published online: 04 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-77253-1 A redox cascade strategy converts waste chloride into reactive chlorine species during electrocatalytic treatment, achieving complete mineralization of toxic chlorinated pollutants.

Nature, Published online: 03 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11091-5 Ketone homologation via palladium-catalysed decarboxylative rearrangement

Hydrogen is a key alternative to fossil fuels and plays a crucial role in industrial hydrogenation. This study employs first-principles density functional theory (DFT) simulations to investigate transition-metal-decorated Al12N12 single-atom catalysts (SACs) for H2 adsorption and dissociation. Interaction energy calculations indicate excellent thermodynamic stability of the catalysts, with Ti@Al1…

Nature Catalysis, Published online: 02 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41929-026-01602-y Geometric distortions are the prevailing approaches for engineering frontier molecular orbitals and chemical reactivity in p-block elements. Here the authors show a spirocyclic structure that exploits through-space orbital interactions in sulfur atoms to engineer highest-occupied molecular orbitals with elevated…

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 02 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02232-4 Chemical recycling of polymers has largely relied on thermally unstable tailor-made materials or highly diluted depolymerization conditions. Now, a bulk main-chain scission pathway enables the rapid, low-temperature depolymerization of polymethacrylates. This methodology can be applied to commercial polymers wit…

PPT entanglement with correlated catalysis: Monotones and Irreversibility Despite powerful quantum tools allowing seemingly impossible state changes, inherent limits to manipulating entangled systems persist. This work resolves a long-standing challenge by proving additivity and strong superadditivity of regularized PPT relative entropy, surpassing previous methods lacking systematic monotones va…

SandboxAQ announced AQCat is now generally available on Claude Science, letting researchers tap its Large Quantitative Model (LQM) by asking questions in plain English. AQCat identifies promising catalysts with accuracy approaching trusted methods, but up to 20,000 times faster, and it evaluates catalysts at a scale that once required specialized staff and hard-to-access computing power.

Nature Communications, Published online: 01 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74391-4 Low-platinum fuel cells need catalyst layers that move protons and oxygen efficiently, but uneven ionomer placement limits performance. Here, the authors report a cobalt single-atom dipole coating which guides the ionomer, protects platinum surfaces and boosts power and durability.

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 01 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02242-2 The programmable assembly of regio- and stereoisomeric alkenes and conjugated homologues has long been regarded as a formidable synthetic challenge. Now a switchable radical and organometallic sorting paradigm has been established through the nickel-catalysed sequential coupling of alkynes, organohalides and a d…

Chalcones are important scaffolds in medicinal chemistry and functional materials, commonly synthesized via the Claisen–Schmidt condensation. In recent years, numerous methodologies have been proposed to improve the sustainability of this transformation, including solvent-free conditions, heterogeneous catalysis, alternative solvents, and process-intensification strategies. However, the lack of s…

A pre-commercial plant is now providing operational data for eventual scaleup and industrial integration of a technology that generates refinery-grade crude oils from biogenic waste, such as agricultural and forestry waste and sewage sludge. The demonstration plant, built and operated by the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT, runs a process known as Thermo-Catalytic Reforming, which combines intermedi…

Linear alcohols, such as butanol, hexanol and octanol are widely used in coatings, adhesives, surfactants, detergents, lubricants, cosmetics and many other products, as well as fuels. Typical industrial methods for producing these alcohols rely on fossil resources and low-selectivity mechanisms that lead to inefficient side reactions and byproducts. Catalyxx is commercializing a new catalytic rou…

Nature Communications, Published online: 31 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-75533-4 PEC H2O2 production usually suffers from low selectivity and poor stability. This study shows a Zn-TiO2/BVO/WO3∥Ru:CuO/Nb-CBO bipolar system that enables efficient and stable H2O2 synthesis under sunlight, achieving a combined Faradaic efficiency of 163.37%.

Nature Catalysis, Published online: 31 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41929-026-01604-w The mechanism of cation enhancement in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction has been widely debated but spectroscopic evidence under operating conditions is lacking. Now operando X-ray and surface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy are combined with theory to reveal that desolvated Cs+ cations enable CO2 activation at substa…