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The manufacture of nitriles is critical to various industrial applications, but poor selectivity results in the significant release of CO₂, NO_x and toxic cyanide. Here, the authors report the electroconversion of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes to valuable nitriles at near-unity selectivities.

Cadmium-modified Fe₂O₃ enables selective electrochemical urea synthesis by suppressing CO₂ reduction and hydrogen evolution. The incorporation of Cd tunes the Fe electronic structure, weakens CO adsorption and promotes the protonation of key C−N intermediates, resulting in high urea productivity.

Nature’s redox enzymes inspire the design of catalysts with precise spatial control. Here, the authors report stable metal-free bicarbenium catalysts that form biradicals for highly selective oxygen and nitric oxide reduction, revealing a blueprint for open-shell electrocatalysis.

Electrochemical CO reduction to multi-carbon products offers a carbon-negative approach to produce chemicals, but the intricate reaction pathways lead to a broad spectrum of products. Now it has been shown that alkali cations alter the mechanistic pathways that govern the reaction selectivity involved in the formation of hydrocarbons versus oxygenates.

Controlling reaction selectivity in complex multistep electrochemical transformations remains a major challenge. Here, the authors report that molecular interface engineering on silver electrodes enables precise regulation of key reaction intermediates for efficient ammonia electrosynthesis.

Reactive capture—integrating CO₂ capture and electrochemical valorization—improves energy efficiency by eliminating gas-phase CO₂ desorption. Here, authors design a redox-active polymeric network to boost the direct conversion of captured CO₂ to multicarbon products with CO₂-free gas product stream.

Light-driven bioethanol dehydration presents a promising route for sustainable ethylene production. This study unveils a surface hydrogen-replenishment mechanism facilitating ethanol dehydration on GaN nanowires with surface-hydrogenated CrMnOx, achieving an ethylene production rate of 1.78 mol·g_cat⁻¹·h⁻¹.

Congenital vertebral malformation has a complex genetic architecture that isn’t fully understood. Here, the authors explore the genetic architecture of congenital vertebral malformation through case-control rare variant genetic analyses and embryonic transcriptome analyses of the developing spine.

Conventional alkaline and neutral CO₂-to-CH₄ systems suffer carbon loss, and recovering the lost carbon requires input energy exceeding the heating value of CH₄. Here, the authors report a chelating strategy to obtain Cu-N/O single sites decorated Cu clusters, which enables energy- and carbon-efficient CH₄ electroproduction in an acidic system.

Current industrial methods of ethylene glycol production generate substantial CO₂ emissions. Here electrocatalytic ethylene-to-ethylene glycol conversion is coupled to electrochemical CO₂ capture, decreasing carbon intensity by an order of magnitude.

Metal borides/borates are promising candidates to become high-performance alkaline oxygen evolution reaction catalysts. This study reports an in-situ phase composition modulation approach to fabricate boride/borate-based catalysts.

CO₂ electroreduction in acidic electrolytes avoids carbon loss but entails the issue of salt formation arising from the addition of metal cations, thereby limiting operational stability. Now copper is decorated with immobilized cationic ionomers, achieving stable CO₂ reduction towards multi-carbon products in metal cation-free acidic electrolytes.

Urea electrosynthesis from nitrate and CO₂ is an attractive strategy to diminish pollutants and reduce emissions, but yields are generally low. Now, this process is performed on a Zn/Cu hybrid catalyst achieving high Faradaic efficiency for urea of 75% via a relay catalysis mechanism.

Producing valuable chemicals from carbon dioxide, water and sunlight through artificial conversion schemes remains a challenging and ambitious goal in photocatalysis. Here, the authors introduce an effective approach for the synthesis of C₂₊ compounds using a binary AuIr catalyst in combination with InGaN nanowires.

The electrochemical production of ethylene oxide from CO₂ is an attractive yet challenging process. Now, a BaO_x/IrO₂ catalyst for ethylene oxidation is reported and applied in an O₂-redox-mediated paired system for complete CO₂ to ethylene oxide production.

Acidic conditions present a solution to carbonate formation in CO₂ electrolysis but create a selectivity issue through competing H₂ evolution. Here, theoretical methods are used to optimize acidity and select Pd–Cu as a selective electrocatalyst for acidic CO₂ reduction with negligible carbonate crossover and high single-pass carbon efficiency.

The electroreduction of CO₂ offers a promising approach to produce carbon-neutral methane using renewable electricity. This study shows that the introduction of Au in Cu enables selective methane production from CO₂ by regulating *CO availability.

Copper-based catalysts are promising for electroreduction of carbon monoxide to multi-carbon products, yet further improvements in selectivity, productivity and stability are still needed. Here the authors show that doping copper with silver and ruthenium boosts its performance towards synthesis of n-propanol—a useful fuel.

Electrosynthesis of n-propanol from CO has been limited by poor selectivity and low product concentration. Here a Sn–Cu catalyst/carbon/ionomer heterojunction is prepared where the adjacent atomic active sites favour the coupling of C₁ and C₂ intermediates to C₃ product with 47% Faradaic efficiency and the reversal of electro-osmotic drag concentrates the product to 30 wt%.

Gorman et al. designed a Lassa virus prefusion-stabilized soluble glycoprotein complex trimer (GPC), with which they identified a Lassa virus-neutralizing nanobody that bound the GPC apex and elicited neutralizing antibody responses in guinea pigs.

The advancement of high entropy alloy development is both rapid and challenging. Here, the authors discover an unusual Sabatier principle operating on the high entropy alloy surface, which leads to a notable enhancement in catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reactions.

Enhancing the kinetics and selectivity of CO₂/CO electroreduction towards valuable multi-carbon products poses a scientific challenge and is imperative for practical applicability. Here the authors report that modifying copper catalysts with surface thiol ligands significantly improves acetate selectivity.

CO electroreduction is a promising carbonate-free approach to produce ethylene, but suffers from limited selectivity and low energy efficiency. By modifying copper with a strong electron acceptor, 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane, the water dissociation step is accelerated, leading to excellent ethylene selectivity and full-cell energy efficiency in CO electroreduction.

This work regulates solid/liquid/gas triple-phase interface, facilitating site-selective protonation in carbon monoxide electroreduction. It achieves increased energy-efficiency in acetate production and contributes to the understanding of selectively controlling the electrosynthesis of a single product.

The development of a tandem catalyst, consisting of two distinct nanoscale-engineered layers, enables efficient multicarbon production with high CO₂ utilization in an acidic CO₂ electroreduction environment.

For many neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) risk genes, the significance for mutational burden is unestablished. Here, the authors sequence 125 candidate NDD genes in over 16,000 NDD cases; case-control mutational burden analysis identifies 48 genes with a significant burden of severe ultra-rare mutations.

A study using a copper-in-silver dilute alloy catalyst in a high-pressure gas flow reactor reports highly selective electrosynthesis of acetate from carbon monoxide.

Electroreduction of pressurized CO₂ to chemicals has great potential but remains underexplored. Here, the authors show that increased CO₂ coverage under high pressures alters product selectivity. Guided by the results, a proton-resistant Cu/polypyrrole electrode is designed for enhanced CO₂ conversion.

Performing CO₂ reduction in acidic conditions enables high CO₂ utilization. Here, the authors report an electrodeposited Cu catalyst which achieves a 60% faradaic efficiency for ethylene and 90% for multicarbon products–both records for acidic CO₂ reduction.

The carbon and energy efficiencies of current CO₂/CO electrolysis systems are limited. Here the authors show that these metrics can be improved by controlling ion flows in the vicinity of a copper catalyst by the application of a covalent organic framework.

Oxygen reduction to hydrogen peroxide is a promising alternative to replace the energy-intensive anthraquinone process in industry. Now, the hydrogen peroxide electrosynthesis performance of a carbon-supported cobalt phthalocyanine catalyst is tuned via the introduction of oxygen functional groups to the support, which optimize the electronic structure of cobalt active sites.

Electrosynthesis of higher carbon products (C₄₊) in a high selectivity has not been achieved by the direct reduction of CO₂ or CO. Here, the authors use a cascade electrocatalysis–thermocatalysis approach to produce butane from CO with an overall selectivity of 43%.

Electrosynthesis of multicarbon products from CO₂ is restricted by the proton-rich conditions in strong acids leading to unfavourable hydrogen evolution. Now a heterogeneous catalyst adlayer composed of covalent organic framework nanoparticles and cation-exchange ionomers is reported to regulate the local pH, suppressing H₂ generation and promoting multicarbon formation.

The direct electrosynthesis of acetic acid from CO₂ typically has the drawback of CO₂ crossover. Now, a cascade approach for the electroreduction of CO₂ to CO, followed by CO to acetic acid, is reported in which off-target intermediates are destabilized, leading to an acetic acid Faradaic efficiency of 70%.

Single-atom catalysts demonstrate enhanced catalytic properties, but most systems only explore combinations of a few different metals. Here, a library of 37 different elements is investigated, and it is shown that loading 12 metallic atoms in one system presents improved electrochemical activity.

Chromosome-level genome reference sequence assemblies of the model and biofactory Nicotiana benthamiana line, and a wild relative, have been generated and annotated for gene models, tissue-specific transcriptomes, microRNAs and epigenetic landscapes.

Understanding the thermal transport properties of tungsten nitrides formed on the divertor surface of the tokamak is crucial, as they will be subjected to continuous heat flux. In this article, the authors theoretically calculated the influence of vacancy defects on the electrical and thermal conductivities of tungsten nitrides, providing an understanding of the mechanism behind the effects in terms of electron behavior.