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Understanding nanoparticle catalysis is limited by complex structure–activity links. This study reveals that Pt corner sites on 1–1.5 nm particles drive activity via electronic effects, offering a rare quantitative insight into water gas shift catalytic performance.

The restructuring of carbon-based supports under reaction conditions limits catalyst stability for vinyl chloride synthesis. Here, the authors report that hydrogen chloride generates defect sites on carbon nitride supports, promoting acetylene polymerization and accelerating catalyst deactivation.

Large-scale incinerators can remove engineered nanoparticles from flue gas and loosely trap them in solid combustion residues.

Carbon is a key support for metal-catalyzed acetylene hydrochlorination to vinyl chloride but its role remains elusive. Here, the authors, by means of operando spectroscopy, demonstrate the co-catalytic function of neighboring carbon and isolated metal atoms, constituting the active ensemble.

The performance of nanostructured metal catalysts in acetylene hydrochlorination is governed by an interplay of nuclearity, coordination and host effects. The central activity descriptor is identified as the acetylene adsorption energy.

Existing memristors cannot be reconfigured to meet the diverse switching requirements of various computing frameworks, limiting their universality. Here, the authors present a nanocrystal memristor that can be reconfigured on-demand to address these limitations

Carbons are indispensable as supports for metal-based catalysts in polyvinyl chloride manufacture via acetylene hydrochlorination. In this work, the acetylene interaction, tunable through adjusting microporosity and oxygen sites is identified as central activity and stability descriptor.

Controlling the transition-dipole-moment orientation in quantum dot solids at device level has not been achieved before. Here, the authors demonstrated intrinsic light out-coupling enhancement approach to boost the external quantum efficiency up to 25% by using the colloidal lead halide perovskite anisotropic nanocrystals.

The ideal metal selection and atomic-level arrangement for catalysts in CO₂ hydrogenation are still uncertain. Here, copper is identified as the most effective promoter for enhancing ZnZrO_x catalysts when precisely structured into CuZn ensembles, offering new insights for designing superior catalysts for CO₂-based methanol synthesis.

Decoupled high-order MQW superlattices are desired to design miniaturized photonic sources but they are yet to be realized in scalable ways. Here Jagielski et al. achieve this goal using multiple-stacked colloidal lead halide perovskite quantum wells separated by atomically thin quantum barriers.

In spite of numerous works, the nature of high activity of Cu/ZnO catalyst in methanol synthesis remains the subject of intensive debate. Here, the authors study the carbon dioxide hydrogenation mechanism using high-pressure operando techniques which allow them to unify different, seemingly contradicting, models.

X-ray scattering and density functional theory calculations reveal that ligand-induced tensile stress can distort the rock-salt structure of small PbS and PbSe colloidal quantum dots, creating a Pb-deficient core surrounded by a Pb-enriched shell.

Palladium supported on zeolite is a highly active catalyst for complete methane oxidation, but its stability needs to be improved. Here, the authors design a highly active catalyst resistant to steam-induced sintering under reaction conditions by alleviating the high mobility of palladium nanoparticles and zeolite degradation.

Platinum nanoparticles have been neglected as a catalyst for acetylene hydrochlorination due to their limited activity. Here, the authors show that nanostructuring to the single-atom level renders platinum on carbonaceous supports a superior catalyst for this important industrial process.

Bismuth fluoride is a promising cathode material for lithium ion batteries due to its high theoretical capacity and cycling stability, but low-cost production methods are needed for potential commercialization. Here, the authors report a synthetic method to grow pure BiF₃ via thermal decomposition of bismuth trifluoroacetate.