Catalyst synthesis articles from across Nature Portfolio

Engineering metal-ion vacancy in dynamically reconstructed catalysts under operating conditions is attractive for practical utilization. Here, the authors report a Sr-mediated reconstruction method to dynamically fabricate Co-vacancy-enriched Sr-CoOOH for water electrolysis.

The development of a Late-stage functionalization strategy to introduce functionalizable groups provides a toolbox for future drug discovery. Herein, the authors report a synthetic strategy for the N-methyl selective alkenylation and alkynylation of aliphatic tertiary amines using organophotoredox catalysis, and its application to the late-stage functionalization of marketed drugs.

The reverse water–gas shift reaction is crucial for CO₂ conversion using renewable hydrogen, but simultaneously achieving high activity, selectivity, and stability in catalysts remains a challenge. Here, the authors introduce a near-surface “quasi-hyperbaric” ammonia strategy that integrates atmospheric-pressure processing with in situ ammonia decomposition to synthesize a high-energy Mo₂N-based catalyst capable of overcoming these trade-offs.

Atomic catalytic pairs enable multistep transformations, yet the roles of spatial arrangement and coordination symmetry in homonuclear pairs remain unclear. Here, the authors construct atomically dispersed homonuclear Pt₁–Pt₁ pairs with asymmetric Pt₁C₃–Pt₁O₁C₃ coordination on reduced graphene oxide, enabling efficient transfer hydrogenation of azobenzene.

Valorizing plastic waste remains a major challenge due to its severe environmental impact. Here, the authors report a CuCo/CoOₓ catalyst constructed via stepwise hydrogen spillover, enabling near-quantitative conversion of waste polyethylene terephthalate to p-xylene.

This work develops an atomic-level coordination engineering strategy that strengthens key intermediate adsorption to promote C–C coupling, enabling highly selective photocatalytic CO₂ conversion to ethylene.

The transformation of municipal sludge into high-entropy single-atom catalysts offers not just a new materials synthesis route, but a new framework for how we conceive of waste, resource recovery and circularity.

A recent study proposed ZeoBind, an AI-accelerated workflow enabling the discovery and experimental verification of hits within chemical spaces containing hundreds of millions of zeolites.

By grafting oxide nano-islands onto oxide supports, the sintering resistance of metal nanoparticles at high temperature is increased, enabling consistent stability for high-temperature dry methane reforming.

Annabelle Maletzko discusses how physisorption can be used to optimize the performance of catalysts for proton exchange membrane electrolysers.