Now, Plamen Atanassov and colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, introduce a simple method to evaluate the degree of surface crystallinity based on oxygen 1s X-ray photoelectron spectra (noting that the surface region is defined by the penetration depth of the technique). The researchers put forward the ratio between the peak intensity of μ1−O(H) and μ2−O(H) defective oxygen species as

Now, Ana S. Pina and colleagues report that LLPS can significantly increase the catalytic activity of peptides. Specifically, the researchers created single peptide-based coacervates, whereby the spatial confinement led to a more folded structure of the peptides (pictured). The peptide P7 (KVYFSIPWRVPM-NH2), which was used as a model system, has a high affinity for phosphorylated assemblies, can hydrolyse

Iron catalysts with homogenous phase composition have shown a reduced tendency to form CO2. Using this information as a design principle, the team developed an effective way to synthesize a catalyst with pure χ-Fe5C2 phase by passivating Raney iron — via exposition to 1% oxygen in He at room temperature for 20 h — followed by a carburization step with a hydrogen-rich syngas mixture at 350 °C. Further

The research team explored how the catalyst, in the presence of photocatalyst 1,2,3,5-tetrakis(carbazol-9-yl)-4,6-dicyanobenzene (4CzIPN) and blue light irradiation, generates a radical intermediate on cis-1,2-cyclohexanediol that can be trapped by 1-dodecanethiol as hydrogen atom donor, to produce trans-1,2-cyclohexanediol. Use of epi-NHBoc-dihydrocinchonidine yields the opposite enantiomer. The reaction

The researchers employed an Au electrocatalyst with CO2-to-CO selectivity to investigate the differences when using the potassium salts of several inorganic and carboxylate anions in place of bicarbonate electrolyte. The generated species (H2 and CO) were monitored online using in situ differential electrochemical mass spectrometry. Compared to bicarbonate, the inorganic anions perchlorate, sulfate

Correction to: Nature Catalysis https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-024-01239-9, published online 22 October 2024.

The researchers had sought to understand the biosynthetic roles of the proteins in a RiPP biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) that was recently identified by a bioinformatic approach. For this purpose, the orthologous spy BGC from Streptomyces sp. NRRL F-5065 was heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli including its precursor peptide and the encoded proteins SpyC, SpyE, SpyD and SpyB. A peptide resulting

The method is based on the use of silica-supported metal-precursors for each element of the targeted intermetallic compound. The team chose platinum–zinc alloys to begin with, and accordingly prepared Pt/SiO2 and ZnO/SiO2 precursors via incipient wetness impregnation. Such precursors are physically mixed and heated under hydrogen atmosphere in a flow reactor (pictured, panel a), with a stepped thermal

Now, as they report in Chem, Bortz, Bennett and Fasan leverage a cytochrome P450 site-selective C–H oxyfunctionalization as the key step to install functional groups as handles for directing chemical transformations of the scaffold, generating a library of complex small molecules, through a chemoenzymatic DOS (ceDOS) strategy. The team used variants of fatty acid hydroxylase P450BM3, which were previously

The team of researchers make use of the –NH2 terminal groups present in native C3N4 to covalently anchor an Fe(SalenCl2) molecular catalyst without the need for any additional linkers (pictured). This is performed by reacting the aryl chloride group of the molecule with C3N4 in the presence of KOtBu. With the Fe(Salen) attached to the surface, it is shown that styrene can be converted into styrene

The researchers first deposit Ir nanoparticles with an average size of 1.7 nm onto a gas diffusion layer. After applying an initial reducing potential of 0.2 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (VRHE), operando X-ray total scattering with pair distribution function (PDF) analysis and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) reveal that the metallic Ir nanoparticles exhibit a decahedral shape with

Correction to: Nature Catalysis https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-024-01181-w, published online 2 July 2024.