Catalytic mechanisms articles from across Nature Portfolio

While hydrogen spillover has been widely investigated in heterogeneous catalysis, the migration of metal species via a similar mechanism remains poorly understood. Here, the authors reveal a metal-species spillover process enabled by water adlayers on support surfaces.

CO adsorption free energy has been suggested as a descriptor to explain and predict CO₂ reduction activity across various electrocatalysts, but methods for determining it experimentally under operating conditions are lacking. Here a kinetic model is combined with rotating ring-disk voltammetry to estimate this parameter.

A chiral mesostructured copper-doped In₂S₃ photocatalyst is reported for photocatalytic CO₂ reduction to ethanol. Chirality-induced spin polarization stabilizes key intermediates, which are converted over Cu–In active sites, promoting C–C coupling and achieving high ethanol selectivity and yield.

Creating renewable nitriles faces challenges like competitive adsorption and harsh conditions. Here a CoRu dual-atom catalyst enables efficient ammoxidation of aldehydes to nitriles under ambient conditions through synergistic adsorption.

CO₂ hydrogenation on Cu/Al₂O₃ is limited by low activity. Herein, high-velocity gas collisions create transient distorted Cu sites, tripling CO₂ conversion, boosting methanol selectivity to 95 % and increasing the space-time-yield six times.

Pt/CeO₂ ensemble catalysts show great potential for hydrocarbon oxidation, but the nature of active sites and interfacial evolution during reaction has been debated. Here, the authors demonstrate metallic Pt ensembles serve as the true active sites for C₃H₆ oxidation, and confirm dynamic nature of oxygen activation with the threshold temperature around 170 °C.

Tafel slope analysis, first proposed by Julius Tafel in 1905 and supported by the Butler–Volmer equation, is widely used to elucidate electrocatalytic mechanisms and evaluate kinetics. However, some misuses still frequently occur in the literature, calling for rigorous mechanistic investigations at single-crystal electrodes and under well defined mass-transport conditions.

The evolution of local microenvironments at copper electrodes during the electrochemical CO reduction reaction has long been overlooked. In situ electrochemical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy now reveals that the dynamic restructuring of interfacial water resulting from increased local alkalinity enhances the acetate selectivity of this reaction.

A new study highlights how interfacial design and retaining intermediate species can unlock a new performance window in electrocatalysis — transforming a reactive gas into a tethered partner for selective carbon–carbon coupling reactions.

A catalytic system is reported that efficiently converts acetylene impurities into polymer-grade ethylene feedstock by generating hydrogen radicals from water using light as the power source. This system is suggested as a viable sustainable method for ethylene purification.