Themed collection 2025 Chemical Science HOT Article Collection

Gaining insights into the origins and roles of the field-effect will facilitate better applications in energy and environmental catalysis.

In situ Raman spectroscopy study of the CO₂ electroreduction reaction.

Bienzyme biocatalytic cascades are coupled with Fe³⁺-doped ZIF-90 (Fe³⁺-ZIF-90) nanozymes to enable three-catalyst cascaded chemical transformations in confined media. The enzyme/nanozyme composites are applied as sensing platforms.

A practical approach for the synthesis of multi-functionalized spirocyclic vinyl sulfones is disclosed, which proceeds via consecutive radical cyclization and (hetero)aryl migration.

Aerolysin nanopore was applied as a tool to discriminate the cis and trans isomers of the Xaa-Pro peptide bond at a single-molecule level.

Single-atom-anchored aptasensors eliminate aptamer flexibility-induced non-specific adsorption, enabling precise in vivo dopamine tracking and revealing Parkinson's-specific neurotransmitter patterns for targeted therapy.

A universal strategy is proposed to convert unqualified Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) into sodium layered oxide cathodes via a fast sintering process, achieving both economic and environmental benefits.

Base-controlled formation of Breslow intermediates versus Breslow enolates has been achieved with mesoionic carbenes. Of particular interest is the coupling of aldehydes and alkyl halides to yield ketones via an ionic pathway.

A supramolecular crosslinked disulfide elastomer decorated with catechol H-bonds and metal dopants enables the capacitive sensor material to feature decent mechanical tailorability, high sensitivity, broad range, and ultrafast response.

Chiral iron porphyrins catalyze the asymmetric cyclopropanation of a variety of aryl olefins via a reactive iron-cyanocarbene intermediate with high enantioselectivity and product turnover.

Alkaline byproducts at the zinc anode interface continue to exacerbate subsequent side reactions, so realizing timely salvage of electrodes is equally important compared to upfront prevention strategies.

A class of host–guest phosphonium salts with bright blue TADF emission was prepared through rational molecular design, where the anion–π⁺ stacking in the solid state plays a vital role in the population of the triplet state.

An in situ activatable COF-based nanozyme is designed for targeted inhibition of the cGAS–STING pathway for AD treatment, which presents a promising strategy for AD treatment.

We present a method for constructing water–air nanointerfaces with the curvature regulated electrochemically. The nanointerfaces' intrinsic properties could be probed through fluorescence imaging of the interfacial single-molecule collisions.

Mechanochemistry enables the facile ¹⁷O-enrichment of (bi)carbonate salts for high-resolution ssNMR analyses.

A synergistic strategy was proposed to promote n–π* transitions, provide charge-transfer (CT) intermediates and inhibit intramolecular motions to achieve efficient ORTP based on thianthrene (TA) derivatives.

Reduction of ligand–surface interactions facilitated motion of coordination polymers on Cu(111). STM observations over a range of temperatures revealed structure-dependent vibrational behavior and chain modifications at the single-molecule level.

This work reports a novel strategy for engineering porphyrin dimer structures and properties using lacunary polyoxometalates. Three distinct hybrids exhibit modulated stacking geometries, interfacial distances, and properties.

The synergy of mesoporous structure and binary PdS composition enabled selective hydrogenative coupling of nitrobenzene for electrosynthesis of value-added azobenzene in H₂O under ambient conditions.

For Fe–N–C catalysts, the stability (S-) number hardly varies in basic media. While in acidic media, the S-number stays constant at low current densities, and then increases with the climbing current density, likely due to the rising local pH values.

An evolved designer enzyme featuring genetically encoded 3-aminotyrosine (aY) as catalytic residue promotes highly enantioselective Friedel–Crafts alkylations, is enantiocomplementary to a prior design, and enables whole-cell biocatalysis.

Methanol serves as the primary transport intermediate between metal oxides and zeolites, while ketene acts as the dominant intermediate for ethene formation in the OX–ZEO system.

PepINVENT introduces a generative model for designing peptides that extend beyond natural amino acids, enabling non-traditional peptide discovery and optimization.

This work reports the first example of a NBE-CO₂Me-mediated palladium-catalyzed annulative π-extension reaction of bromoaromatics to construct structurally diverse polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-based fluorescent materials.

Utilizing a novel aromatic ligand-exchange plus porphyrin-axial-coordination strategy, all-inorganic CsPbBr₃ NCs with an order of magnitude improvement in optical absorption nonlinearities are achieved under PyMA and ZnPr co-modification.

An N-phosphinoamidinato potassium borasilenide containing an anionic SiB double bond is a versatile building block for transferring a BSi double bond or B/Si atoms into inorganic and organic substrates.

An externally exposed V dopant imposes H-atom uptake at the polyoxotungstate surface and dictates the proton–coupled electron transfer mechanism.

The core–valence energy gaps decrease from the light to the heavy elements, with the heavy noble-gas cores transferring their large spin–orbit splitting into the upwardly pushed valence bands of the ligands.

The asymmetric total synthesis of penicifuranone A was achieved in eight steps using an NHC-catalyzed umpolung strategy. This approach enabled a convergent formal [4 + 2] annulation with gregatin A, leading to penicifuranone A.

This work investigates organic–inorganic metal halides with room-temperature phosphorescence, showing that tuning the organic components and their interactions improves RTP performance for anti-counterfeiting applications.

A remarkable phosphorescence quantum yield (69.6%) was obtained, and then decreased to 2.7% with the variation in the methyl substituent position due to the extremely strong association between the substituent position and electron–phonon coupling.

Using synchrotron-based techniques, we studied the charge compensation in Ni–Co–Mn cathodes by analyzing electronic and geometric structures, with a focus on anion redox and local structural changes.

A general chemoproteomic profiling approach for oxidoreductases with conceptually novel probes based on diarylhalonium salts is reported.

Continuous porous aromatic framework membranes were designed and constructed to achieve the first example of ion conductive porous frameworks and continuous membranes that dynamically respond to chemical acid/base stimulus.

Electrochemical neutralization assisted galvanic–thermogalvanic device for waste heat recovery.

The exsolution of ruthenium from a 3 at% ruthenium-substituted LaFeO₃ (LFR3) perovskite oxide is meticulously designed to produce a high-performance ruthenium-supported catalyst with high atomic efficiency.

Using DNA-encoded libraries to identify protein binders is common, but finding molecules with functional activity remains challenging. We present here an encoded and pooled approach to discover catalysts for ubiquitin transfer.

A practical deconstructive arylation of aliphatic alcohols has been developed using a synergistic photoredox proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) and nickel dual catalytic system.

Insight into the detailed bulk and surface structure of γ-Al₂O₃ is provided by a NMR crystallographic approach, exploiting isotopic enrichment, multinuclear experimental measurements and periodic calculations.

The first biomimetic syntheses of kadcoccitane H and kadcotrione C methyl ester were achieved by following our biosynthetic proposal for lanosterol-to-kadcoccitanes.

Umpolung of the typical p-type TPA into n-type ATTO contributes to the COF electrode with a remarkable cathodic capacity of 286.31 mA h g⁻¹ at a current density of 0.1 A g⁻¹ in SIBs.

The mechanisms of electrochemical/chemical oxygen reduction catalyzed by an iron porphyrin were studied by in situ EC-MS/CR-MS assisted by electrochemical characterization and stopped-flow UV-vis spectroscopy.

High-performance donor–acceptor–donor′ type ultraviolet emitters have been achieved through an intramolecular locking strategy, realizing a high external quantum efficiency of 7.95% at 1000 cd m⁻² and color coordinates of (0.167, 0.025).

The fabrication of environmentally ion-dissociable high-performance supramolecular polyelectrolyte plastics with a synergistic multivalent and hydrophobic counterion strategy.

For the first time, the aromatization-driven alternating copolymerization of p-QM with isothiocyanates is explored under mild conditions.

PPW width is dictated by different probabilities of ion-water finger complex encountering with water molecules in the organic phase.

Full-color CPL composite films prepared using helical polymers, fluorescein and substrates have excellent mechanical and processing properties. They exhibit matrix universality, low cost, and multi-stimulus responsiveness to UV, heat, and acid/base.

Robust protein–ligand interaction modeling through integrating physical laws and geometric knowledge for absolute binding free energy calculation.

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-based solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) have been considered promising candidates for advanced Li metal batteries due to their adequate mechanical strength and acceptable thermal stability.

Methane is facilely activated by gas phase tantalum cations via a spin-forbidden process leading to statistical product energy disposal.

We disclose a method for silver-enabled formal [4π + 2σ] cycloaddition reactions between bicyclobutanes and nitrile imines (generated from hydrazonyl chlorides) to furnish a diverse array of 2,3-diazo-BCHepes.

The influence of the second metal atom in neutral σ,σ bimetallic gold(I) acetylides is studied in detail in the context of the migratory insertion of a number of substrates, where the reaction conditions depend dramatically on the nuclearity.

Clustering of the spectra of CO adsorbed on high-entropy alloys AgAuCuPdPt, combined with the catalytic properties of each cluster, identified a cluster of high-entropy alloys with high selectivity for C₂₊ products.

Novel BTM luminescent radicals facilitate the luminescence transition from common β-type to rare α-type within a D–A˙ framework, enhancing the potential for developing new luminescent systems in the field of organic materials science.

This work introduces an ethanol-assisted synthesis strategy that facilitates the incorporation of a new hexa-coordinated Ti species into TS-1 zeolite that is highly active in the propylene epoxidation reaction.

A curvature modulation method without changing the specific surface area was developed, and the strength of the electric field around the electrode surface significantly affects the ion trapping and diffusion rates during the CDI process.

Polaritons lose delocalization in energetically disordered systems. A large Rabi splitting about 3–4 times of the inhomogeneous linewidths is required to restore delocalization. This study can guide future rational experiment designs.

Precise endo-functionalization tailors the host cavity to fit the shape and charge distribution of target guest molecules, offering a novel bottom-up strategy for constructing customized molecular receptors.

The energy gaps between “forbidden” and “allowed” mechanisms of routine electrocyclic reactions can be negligibly small.

Kinetic and mechanistic aspects of the intercalation step in non-traditional zeolite synthesis are studied using simultaneous liquid- and solid-state in situ NMR spectroscopy of isotopically enriched materials.

Accelerating the phase transition from layered to spinel by directional coating to deeply probe the relationship between capacity decay, voltage decay, and the phase transition.

We discovered a fully synthetic non-degradative molecular glue for the ternary complex between FKBP12 and the FRB domain of mTOR by screening a library of FKBP12 ligands. Solving the ternary complex structure allowed significant potency enhancement.

Selective crystallization of a novel thorium metal–organic framework (NU-2500) enables the efficient separation of Th(IV) from initial mixtures with rare earth(III) ions.

We present the discovery that the small, chlorinated polyketide natural product cyclohelminthiol II (CHM-II) acts as a new type of cysteine/thiol-targeting covalent-reactive group (CRG) incorporating both reversible and irreversible reactivity.

Intramolecular charge transfer assisted multi-resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters are constructed by grafting donor–acceptor-type moieties as pendant on a multi-resonance core for sensitizer-free solution-processed OLEDs.

Virtual agents and cloud computing have enabled chemists to easily access automated simulations of explicitly solvated molecules.

Group 13 aminoxy complexes, (L)E(TEMPO)₃ (TEMPO = 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl; L = THF (tetrahydrofuran) or Py (pyridine); E = Al, Ga, In), display ambiphilic reactivity with H₂ and function as synthons for the preparation of materials.

A one-pot palladium-catalysed arylation process has been used to expedite the synthesis of biaryl α-amino acids, leading to the discovery of an environment-sensitive fluorescent probe that was used to monitor the activity of a serine protease.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) via phenolic-mediated interfacial anchoring (PIA) with single Fe atoms dispersed on the surface of N/P-doped carbon supports, exhibiting exceptional biocatalytic properties.