Perspectives

Conventional homogeneous strategies for the synthesis of deuterated alcohols — valuable synthetic targets due to their roles in pharmaceuticals, materials, and mechanistic studies — present limitations in terms of cost and catalyst recovery, with heterogeneous catalysis providing recyclability and enhanced scalability. In this Perspective, the authors discuss the evolution of heterogeneous catalytic systems into scalable and efficient platforms for deuterated alcohol synthesis, highlighting new directions for sustainable isotope incorporation.

Deep learning models are pivotal in drug design, yet they often fail to capture crucial molecular interactions for binding affinity and specificity. Here, the authors present an overview of the methods to integrate molecular representations and propose that future work should develop biochemical foundation models that jointly encode diverse molecular modalities.

The electrocatalytic reduction of nitrate and nitrite to ammonia has recently attracted much attention from the catalysis research community, however, translation into practical applications has remained challenging, partially due to the electrolytes selected for catalyst testing. In this Perspective, the authors discuss trends in electrolyte choices and suggest ways in which researchers could improve electrolyte selection for NO_x⁻ – electroreduction research.

Although superwetting membranes have achieved great success in the separation of layered liquids and emulsions, their application to the separation of miscible liquids has been challenging. In this Perspective, the authors highlight recent advances in superwetting membranes for liquid-liquid separation, focusing on mechanisms across immiscible, partially miscible, and fully miscible systems, providing insight into optimization strategies, and discussing challenges in scalable fabrication for industrial applications.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are often overlooked in electrocatalysis due to perceived instability under operational conditions. Here, the authors highlight that the controlled structural evolution of MOFs under electrocatalytic conditions can be harnessed to create highly active catalytic species.

The demands on chemical industry to transform towards safety and sustainability will require multi-disciplinary research and development. Here, the authors highlight the Mistra SafeChem programme’s multidisciplinary achievements in catalysis, hazard screening, and life cycle assessment, offering insights into advancing safe and sustainable chemical production.

Melanins are a diverse family of natural pigments with a unique combination of optical, electronic, redox, and structural properties that challenge conventional chemical characterisation. Here, the authors summarize insights from the first international interdisciplinary meeting dedicated to melanin and advocate for a unified approach to understanding melanin’s complex chemistry and advancing melanin-based technologies.

Although plasmonic enhancement has been widely studied in pigment–protein complexes – such as Photosystem I and light-harvesting complexes – its application to pigment-pigment self-assembled systems – which are promising candidates for the design of efficient artificial light-harvesting antennas for solar energy – remains largely unexplored. In this Perspective, the authors highlight recent advances in biomimetic light-harvesting design with chlorosome mimics, discussing the role of pigment-pigment interactions in facilitating efficient energy transfer and the potential for plasmonically-enhanced photophysics in these systems.

High-resolution 3D structural data are essential for drug discovery, yet X-ray crystallography has limitations in guiding medicinal chemistry. Here, the authors discuss the use of solution-state NMR spectroscopy with selective side-chain labeling and advanced computational workflows to produce accurate protein-ligand ensembles, enhancing structural insights for medicinal chemists and enabling high-throughput applications.

Mechanically interlocked metal–organic cages constitute a relatively new class of mechanically interlocked materials and are of interest for a range of potential applications in nanotechnology. Here, the author discusses recent progress in the field, with emphasis on their synthetic preparation and structure–function relationships.

Surface-adsorbed ligands are paramount to the applicability of semiconductor nanocrystals, but their experimental investigation is challenging. Here, the authors discuss the successes and challenges of computational and theoretical methods dedicated to ligand modeling, and their potential for advancing the simulation-guided inverse design of nanocrystalline materials.

Glycosyl cations are reactive sugar intermediates that govern the stereoselective formation of glycosidic bonds, however, studying glycosyl cations remains challenging due to their unstable and short-lived features. Here, the authors review the recent achievements in gas-phase research on glycosyl cations by mass spectrometry.

Autoclaves are widely used for the synthesis of upconversion nanoparticles, yet several key synthesis variables are widely unreported, hampering reproducibility. Here, the authors highlight several parameters that should be reported in autoclave synthesis as standard, and discuss key safety considerations surrounding autoclave reactors.

Aqueous zinc batteries are of great interest thanks to their intrinsic safety, potentially low cost, and eco-friendliness, but undesirable chemical reactions on both the anode and cathode sides significantly shorten their cycling life. Here, the authors discuss recent advancements in asymmetric electrolytes that show significant promise in suppressing side reactions at both the anode and cathode while maintaining electrochemical performance.

Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of proteins can be considered an intermediate solubility regime between disperse solutions and solid fibers, relevant to both pathogenic and functional amyloids. Here, the authors review the evidence that links spider silk proteins (spidroins) and LLPS and its role in the spinning process.

Shock compression is a highly dynamic, useful tool for exploring the stability of novel alloys such as quasicrystals, but their formation conditions and the nucleation-growth mechanisms occurring during shock experiments remain largely elusive. Here, the authors provide a summary of quasicrystal shock-syntheses and discuss the advantages and difficulties caused by the experimental complexity.

The bottom-up reconstitution of natural filaments within simplified artificial cellular compartments, such as coacervates, offer a model to study, mimic, and potentially exploit cellular functions. Here, the authors summarize the latest developments towards assembling confined fibrillar networks inside coacervates and related compartments, including a selection of examples ranging from biological to fully synthetic building blocks.

Immune-cell reprogramming driven by mitochondria-derived reactive electrophilic immunometabolites (mt-REMs) is an emerging phenomenon of major biomedical importance. Here, the authors highlight the latest advances and overarching challenges in precision indexing of mt-REMs’ cellular responses with spatiotemporal intelligence and locale-specific function assignments.

Nucleic acids are key elements in numerous applications such as therapeutics and nanotechnology. However, the synthesis of long and modified oligonucleotides remains challenging and alternative, biocatalytic approaches are needed. Here, the authors discuss recent progress in the controlled enzymatic synthesis of oligonucleotides.

The electrochemical Leaf (e-Leaf) is an emerging technology that addresses complex enzyme cascades nanoconfined within a porous conducting material—exploiting efficient electron tunneling and local NADP(H) recycling to transduce catalysis and electricity. Here, the authors describe how the e-Leaf was discovered, the steps in its development so far, and the outlook for future research and applications.