Themed collection 2025 Chemical Science Perspective & Review Collection

Metal catalysts, with thoughtful consideration towards simplicity, can bridge the gap between commercial and designer catalysts in aliphatic polyester synthesis, offering examples of maintaining polymerization control without complicated synthesis.

Four main classes of glyco-nanoplatforms that exploit multivalent carbohydrate–lectin interactions to enable targeted cancer therapy, biosensing, immunomodulation, and antimicrobial treatment.

As a substituent in a molecular material or as part of a perfluoroalkyl chain, judicious use of fluorine can have a profound effect on the properties of molecular materials, in particular liquid crystals.

From LLM reasoning to action: specialized agents coordinate kinetic modeling to produce transparent, uncertainty-aware, reproducible mechanisms.

Spectroscopy enables studying matter via its interaction with electromagnetic radiation, supporting analysis, with machine learning further advancing its capabilities.

Recent advancement in live-cell multiplexed RNA imaging probes for studying RNA biology and disease.

This Perspective reviews enzyme-activity imaging probes, centering on proteases and kinases, their architectures, and readout platforms. It underscores selectivity gains, theranostic designs, AI-assisted discovery, and growing clinical translation.

EPR spectroscopy complements NMR and DFT in designing next-generation MRI contrast agents based on first-row transition metals, providing key molecular parameters for reliable interpretation of relaxometric data.

This perspective focuses on the recent progress of affinity-based, photoreactive, and activity-based histone probes for investigating readers and erasers of histone post-translational modifications.

Enabling technology such as high-throughput screening, automation, and flow chemistry can accelerate the discovery, optimisation, and translation of supramolecular materials.

In this perspective, we summarized recent advances in gas-mediated cancer therapy, highlighting its diverse mechanisms of action.

Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs), which embed metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) within polymers, offer a promising platform for next-generation, energy-efficient separations.

Owing to their electron reservoir abilities, polyoxometalates are promising for artificial photosynthesis. Unlocking their potential hinges on mastering photoinduced electron transfer kinetics for efficient solar fuel production.

This perspective describes our efforts on how to rationally alter the electronic and magnetic properties of a class of inter-related quinoidal/diradicaloid molecules by judicious structural modification.

Oxidative folding of DRPs poses a major challenge to their design, engineering, and application. This perspective introduces methods to actively direct peptide oxidative folding, which enhance their utility and enable the discovery of novel DRPs.

Through a techno-economic analysis of light-driven CO₂ reduction, along consideration of CO₂ capture and product separation, we assess how far this technology is from practical application and propose where the promising opportunities may lie.

The contribution of chiral materials, incorporating a photocatalytic and an organocatalytic unit, to the development of enantioselective transformations by means of heterogeneous photocatalysis is analyzed.

In this perspective, we systematically summarize recent key advances in flexible heterojunctions from modulation at the componential scale to multifunctional properties and optoelectronic applications at the macroscale.

This perspective introduces the fundamentals of surface interrogation scanning electrochemical microscopy, highlights recent advances in probing electrocatalytic processes, and discusses future opportunities for multidisciplinary development.

Imines, a type of dynamic covalent bond, are widely used in responsive materials. Recently, interest has grown in photoresponsive imine systems. Here, we share our perspective on two approaches to render imine systems photoresponsive.

Exploring molecular excited states holds immense significance across organic chemistry, chemical biology, and materials science.

This perspective aims to guide researchers in understanding and overcoming current limitations in computational reaction condition prediction.

An electrical double layer forms at the air/water interface. This strong electric field ionizes water to create the radical cation (and anion) and self-protonation gives hydronium and the hydroxy radical, the key species for accelerated reactions.

This perspective highlights five innovative strategies for synthesizing multicomponent COFs using three or more building blocks, demonstrating their emergent functions in catalysis, separation, and sensing beyond binary systems.

Amorphous materials thinned to the single-layer limit have attracted increasing interest due to their well-defined disorder and emerging unique properties, such as disorder-dominated electronic states, high-density unsaturated coordination, etc.

This perspective describes recent advances in the discovery of fluorescent unnatural amino acids as intrinsic peptidic probes for the minimally invasive measurement, sensing and imaging of biological processes.

This perspective presents a comprehensive review of the activation and stabilization mechanism of I⁺ species and discusses the remaining challenges and opportunities for practical high-energy aqueous 4eZIBs.

This perspective provides an applicative interpretation of triplet-to-singlet FRET, the associated challenges and the domains for further research.

Mn(II) halides: T_d/O_h geometry controls emission color; Mn concentration/distortions tune Stokes shift & QE for eco-LEDs and sensitive detectors.

Through artificial intelligence and robotics, autonomous labs are transforming chemical and materials research by enabling high-throughput, data-driven experiments with minimal human input.

Photocatalysis has transformed macroscopic, topological, and primary sequences of polymeric materials. Leveraging reactivity of photocatalysts will unlock more defined and controlled polymer sequences, topologies, and macroscopic properties.

Thermoset nanocomposites are promising high-performance materials that are uniquely challenging to recycle. This perspective emphasizes the need for a circular economy for thermoset nanocomposites and highlights pathways for achieving that goal.

This perspective explores the advancements in polythiophenes as electron donors in organic solar cells, with a focus on molecular design, device performance, and their structure–property-application relationships.

This perspective highlights the strategies used in the design of photoelectrodes and addresses their effects on activity, selectivity, and stability in photoelectrochemical organic valorisation toward a circular economy.

This perspective highlights recent advances in low-temperature electrolytes for supercapacitors, covering key physical parameters, typical design strategies, theoretical simulations and advanced characterization techniques.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are highly persistent synthetic chemicals that pose severe environmental and health risks, prompting increasingly stringent regulations.

Some recollections of how H-bonding and other resonance-type phenomena came to be described by Natural Resonance Theory (NRT).

This perspective summarizes recent advances in α-peptoid polymers from synthesis to antimicrobial applications, and discusses current challenges and future directions in the development of antimicrobial poly(α-peptoid)s.

This perspective focuses on GOR-integrated hybrid dual-electrolyte systems, bridging fundamental GOR science essential for system design with their implementation in pH-gradient-based hybrid dual-electrolyte systems.

Porous materials have promising characteristics, including tuneable chemical and optical properties, which can be further expanded by their metalation. Yet, structural mapping of metalated covalent organic frameworks is a key challenge to overcome.

The wave function remains central to understanding chemical bonding, with orbitals allowing to analyse various interactions most conveniently, as exemplified for molecular solids using the LOBSTER package extracting them from plane-wave calculations.

This perspective details contemporary approaches used to prepare nucleoside analogues, and opportunities to integrate aspects of chemical synthesis and biocatalysis to access novel nucleoside chemical space.

Coupling the unique powers of photocatalysis and biocatalysis through cofactor-shuttling emerges as a viable and sustainable route for perpetual chemical synthesis.

This perspective introduces the synthesis strategy and structural characteristics of atomically precise Au-based bimetallic nanoclusters and discusses their synergistic catalysis in energy-related small-molecule conversion.

This perspective reviews current approaches to detect G-quadruplex structures in living cells – ranging from dynamic tracking (fluorescence imaging) to structural analysis (NMR spectroscopy) – and outlines future directions for enhanced biological applications.

This perspective examines site-proximity and intermediate transport effects in tandem CO₂ hydrogenation, outlines strategies to boost CH₃OH selectivity, modulate rates and hydrocarbon pools, and provides a roadmap for next-generation catalyst design.

This Perspective assimilates developments in sulfonyl exchange chemical biology that have driven exciting advances in drug discovery and fundamental research over the last decade.

This perspective covers recent advances in scanning electrochemical microscopy operation modes, i.e. the surface interrogation mode and new approach curve principles, as well as the application of these techniques in new electrocatalytic scenarios.

This perspective rethinks boron's role in intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) within tri- and tetra-coordinate organoboron compounds by covering their molecular design, CT mechanisms, structure–activity relationships, and development prospects.

The objective of this perspective is to review the high-interest field of wearable polymer-based sensors—from synthesis to use and detection mechanisms—with a focus on their transient nature, potential for reuse, and ultimate fate.

This perspective summarized emerging chemical biology strategies to interrogate cysteine-mediated redox signaling in a site-specific fashion.

Finding a good match between sample, experiment and data analysis approach is challenging in halide perovskites. Solutions are presented in this perspective to facilitate this task for a wide range of material properties.

The Grignard reaction remained unexplained for more than a century. Today, combining physics-based with machine-learning protocols, it is possible to study and understand the complex solution chemistry of main-group organometallic compounds.

This perspective summarizes recent progress on polymersome-based nanomotors, emphasizing their rational design and fabrication, control of active motion, and biomedical potential.

Enzymatic recycling of plastic waste is attracting considerable attention as a novel strategy to advance a circular plastic economy. While currently limited to polyesters, achieving economically viable biocatalytic processes remains a key challenge.

Glutathione's role in synthesizing functional metal nanomaterials with unique optical properties and nanobiomedical applications.

Developing and benchmarking new, efficient catalysts for the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction is paramount for its application in the global transition toward non-fossil carbon feedstocks and energy sources.

This Perspective identifies critical materials for Power-to-X electrolyzers and highlights how to integrate environmental and social life cycle assessments with early technology development to assess the impacts of disruptive technologies.

We introduce the current challenges, improvement strategies, and future prospects of lead-free solar cells using silver bismuth halide, which is expected to be a promising candidate for high-efficiency lead-free solar cells.

The interaction of light with polymers can be positive, where light enhances polymerization or performance, but it can also be negative towards the targeted properties. Positive and negative interactions between polymers and light are highlighted.

Polyphenol-functionalized nanoarchitectures (cytoPNAs) provide a modular and cell independent strategy to create biohybrids for cell engineering, with improved production for biomanufacturing and enhanced efficacy for cell-based therapies.

A description and general guidelines of how strategies for synthesis of natural product-inspired and -derived compound libraries can be combined for a specific project goal.

This perspective critiques advancements in integrated CO₂ capture and electrochemical conversion, contrasting emerging methods like eRCC via amine or (bi)carbonate pathways and direct ACC with traditional sequential capture and conversion strategies.

25 Years after the discovery of the most influential NHC ligand, we revisit and highlight studies involving IPr that have shaped the field of NHC-transition metal catalysis.

This perspective covers the 99 years of work towards the isolation of a cyclopentadienyl cation, from observation of fleeting compounds to the 2024 X-ray crystal structure of a room temperature stable Cp⁺ cation.

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

The development of transition metal-catalyzed [(2+2)+1] and [(2+2)+2] carbocyclization reactions of 1,6-enynes bearing 1,1-disubstituted olefins is discussed, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities for expanding this powerful transformation.

Laser-induced graphene (LIG) has gained significant attention, with over 170 publications in 2023 alone.

Cryo-electron microscopy plays a pivotal role in materials science by revealing nanoscale structures. This Perspective discusses innovations in experimental design that link structural insights to mechanistic understanding in materials science.

This perspective reviews both materials and molecular data resources and establishes seven guiding principles termed QUANTUM to advance molecular databases toward robust, unified platforms for the research community.