catalysis

Steven Chavez’s path to chemical engineering started with a teacher, Kelly Silva. “You have a knack for this,” Silva told him one day after chemistry class. She moved him into her advanced chemistry course and urged him to work hard. Now Chavez is at the University of California, Los Angeles, studying catalysts—materials that facilitate chemical processes. Catalysts are used frequently in industr…

At the International Conference on Renewable Resources & Biorefineries in Leuven, Belgium, Devanshu presented his recent work, and won the best PhD talk prize! He showed his progress on enhancing […] The post Devanshu Sajwan wins Best PhD Talk Prize in Leuven appeared first on Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis .

Nature Communications, Published online: 16 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74475-1 Electrocatalytic NO reduction to NH3 is hindered by insufficient NO activation. Here, the authors report Cu1−Ti pairs that integrate the N affinity of Ti and O affinity of Cu to efficiently activate NO via bidirectional electron donation, thus achieving a high NH3 yield and Faradaic efficiency.

Nature Catalysis, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41929-026-01551-6 Enzyme assemblies can enhance metabolic efficiency, yet the ways in which transient interactions fine tune catalytic outcomes remain poorly understood. This study demonstrates that a flexible partner protein transiently remodels an enzyme’s active site to favour productive chemistry in a flavonoid metabolon.

Nature Communications, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74205-7 Catalysts often change under working conditions, limiting their stability. This study shows that ammonia can direct ruthenium atoms onto ceria, forming durable active sites for efficient hydrogen production under high-pressure conditions.

Nature Communications, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74317-0 1,n-Difunctionalized alkyl linchpins are valuable synthetic intermediates, but current routes suffer from poor step economy and limited functional group tolerance. Here, the authors report a radical-mediated bidirectional C–C bond cleavage strategy that transforms cyclic ketones into diverse functionalized linch…

Nature Communications, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74349-6 An oxidant-free electrocatalytic system with an I-BiOI@CC anode is developed for phenolic polymerization via iodinemediated proton-coupled charge transfer, converting pollutants into recoverable solids with 97.1% selectivity and low toxicity.

Nature Communications, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74410-4 Efficient carbon dioxide reduction to multi-carbon products in acidic media is hindered by competing hydrogen evolution. Here, the authors report a hybrid catalyst that regulates proton transfer to drive highly selective multi-carbon formation at high current densities.

A new catalyst design could significantly improve the conversion of CO2 into methanol, an important fuel and chemical feedstock. Researchers separated key reaction steps across different catalyst sites, avoiding a long-standing trade-off between speed and efficiency. The result was about three times more methanol production than standard commercial catalysts.

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a computation-guided strategy to produce urea more efficiently from carbon dioxide and nitrate. By combining large language models, density functional theory calculations and experiments, the approach identified a cadmium-modified iron oxide catalyst that maintains high urea selectivity at practical current densities. Urea…

A team of researchers in South Korea has developed a new catalyst that can repair itself after damage, potentially solving one of the biggest problems facing hydrogen energy technologies. The breakthrough could help improve the durability of hydrogen fuel cells and water electrolyzers, two technologies that are expected to play an important role in the […] The post Scientists create a self-healin…

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 12 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02148-z N-aryl pyrazole is a prevalent motif among pharmaceuticals across various therapeutic areas but can be challenging to synthesize due to the high similarity of the two nitrogen atoms. Now it has been shown that the use of copper catalysis and arynes provides a switchable protocol to access both regioisomers.

A very recent experimental study [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (10) e2524790123] demonstrated that non-functionalized graphene (Gr) supported on silicon(111) catalyzed the decomposition of small sulfur-containing compounds under ultra-high vacuum. Accompanying density functional theory (DFT) calculations identify grain boundary defects (GBDs) and interfacial defects as the active sites. Func…

Researchers have developed a solar-driven catalyst material that harnesses the energy of a single photon to reduce carbon dioxide and oxidize organic waste at the same time, producing valuable chemicals in both reactions. Scientists at the University of Nottingham have created two catalyst materials that, when coupled together within the same reactor, can simultaneously convert […]

Nature Communications, Published online: 12 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74210-w While the “majority rules” dictates the handedness of heterochiral assemblies, their chiroptical signals are typically weaker than those of homochiral ones. Here, the authors demonstrate that controlled enantiomeric imbalance can enhance chiroptical activity beyond that of homochiral assemblies.

Nature Communications, Published online: 12 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74293-5 The authors use femtosecond and nanosecond transient absorption spectroscopy to investigate a prototypical EDA system, asymmetric α-alkylation of aldehydes, enabling observation of excited-state dynamics.

Nature Communications, Published online: 12 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74186-7 The authors report a visible-light-mediated, chiral Brønsted acid-catalyzed C2-umpolung of 3-azoindoles, enabling their catalytic asymmetric formal nucleophilic C2-substitution with 2-substituted indoles. This strategy provides efficient access to axially chiral 2,3’-bisindoles in good yields with excellent enan…

Nature Catalysis, Published online: 11 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41929-026-01554-3 Electrocatalysts for ammonia oxidation tend to be poisoned by nitrogen-based intermediates. Here the authors use an electrode-alternating strategy that uses pulsed potential reversal to continuously regenerate the deactivated surface, enabling Pt-based ammonia electrolysis for over 1,000 h.

Herein, a straightforward, and mild synthetic co-precipitation method is used to prepare Cr-ZnO/RGO nanocomposite to be used in supercapacitor applications. First, the chromium (Cr) doping concentration in zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles was systematically varied (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10%) to evaluate its influence on the electrochemical performance. The composite was constructed by combining reduced g…

Nature Communications, Published online: 11 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74386-1 Light-driven oxygen redox offers a new strategy to boost oxygen evolution activity by enabling direct O–O bond formation. Here, the authors report that sulfur-treated cobalt oxyhydroxide generates non-bonding oxygen states under light, enhancing oxygen evolution performance.