Photocatalysis articles from across Nature Portfolio

The synthesis of organoarsenicals has traditionally involved multistep procedures and the use of toxic arsenical reagents, impeding their widespread application. Now, a photocatalytic approach enables the direct conversion of arsenic sulfide minerals, such as orpiment, into various organoarsenicals using visible light.

The authors report a wavelength-gated regeneration strategy, where specific wavelength photogenerated carriers drive the reversible cycling of active sites, enabling highly stable photocatalytic CO₂ reduction to C₂H₆.

Current thermal wax refining methods are energy intensive. Here, the authors report a photothermal process using a nanoscale zero-valent iron catalyst and sunlight to refine low-grade waxes into high-grade waxes with narrow distributions.

Photochargeable semiconductors offer a promising route to overcoming efficiency limits in photocatalytic transformations. Now it has been shown that zinc indium sulfide nanocrystals with a high charge storage capacity, combined with a nickel cocatalyst, enable highly selective and scalable amine dehydrogenative coupling with hydrogen evolution.

Photocatalytic CO₂ reduction is fundamentally limited by inefficient utilization of solar energy, particularly low-energy photons. Here, the authors report a nanoscale greenhouse structure (Bi@Fe₂O₃) that enables cascaded full-spectrum solar utilization and enhances solar-driven CO₂ reduction with water to CH₄.

Here the authors present a photoinduced Mn(II)-bipyridine catalyzed cross-coupling reaction between aryl halides, particularly less-reactive aryl chlorides, and nucleophiles containing nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur.

This study reports an asymmetric single-atom catalyst in a floating photothermal platform, realising simultaneous solar-driven hydrogen production and seawater desalination in a scalable device.

The synthesis of organoarsenicals has traditionally involved multistep procedures and the use of toxic arsenical reagents, impeding their widespread application. Now, a photocatalytic approach enables the direct conversion of arsenic sulfide minerals, such as orpiment, into various organoarsenicals using visible light.

The effectiveness of solar-driven water splitting is constrained by inefficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers and their rapid recombination. Researchers now show that multilayered structures that exhibit quantum effects by confining electrons in thin layers can optimize charge carrier dynamics, resulting in photocatalysts with remarkable efficiency.

Exploiting benzene ring contraction to access high-value molecular scaffolds is challenging. Now, through photoexcitation of a transient intermediate generated during the interrupted Fischer indolization, the benzene ring contraction of arylhydrazines is unlocked to synthesize fused pyridines under mild conditions. The reaction shows good functional group tolerance and predictable regioselectivity.