Progress in the field of photocatalytic CO₂ reduction has been constrained by a lack of comparability between studies. This Perspective provides recommendations for best practices in the undertaking and reporting of experimental data in this promising research area.

The valorization of methane into oxygenated products has long intrigued the catalysis community, however, progress in the field is disparate and practical implementation remains elusive. This Review discusses recent advances in the area using performance indicators that reveal the gaps between academic investigations and industrial methane utilization and highlight possibilities for further developments.

Understanding the structure–performance relationships of heterogeneous catalysts is of fundamental importance for their deployment in industry. However, gaps exist between the conditions and catalytic materials commonly employed in laboratory studies and those encountered in practical reactors. This Perspective highlights the importance of recognizing such gaps, with the goal to inform the planning of academic research and maximize its impact.

Thanks to a unique set of properties, liquid metal catalysts provide advantages compared to traditional solid systems, yet their potential in heterogeneous catalysis has not been fully explored. This Perspective identifies some of the key advances in the field of liquid metal catalysis, discussing areas where progress is expected through further fundamental understanding as well as reactor engineering.

Being able to selectively derive desired compounds from biomass feedstock is very challenging. Now the selectivity of Pt–Co catalysts for the electroreduction of guaiacol and other lignin-derived substrates is shown to depend on the Co speciation and preferential C–OH cleavage can be obtained, retaining the C–OR group.

Electroreduction of CO₂ competes with the hydrogen evolution reaction; thus, controlling water’s activity to exclusively act as a proton donor is a desirable yet challenging goal. Now the behaviour of water in aprotic solvents is shown to depend on the solvent’s donor ability, which can modulate the hydrogen bond network and in turn promote the desired reactivity.

Pt is the most active catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction in acidic media, but the precise nature of its active sites remains elusive. Now electrical transport spectroscopy and molecular dynamics are combined to map the hydrogen adsorption sites on Pt nanowires and reveal the much higher activity of (111)/(100) edge sites.

Olefin hydroformylation is traditionally performed with homogeneous catalysts. Here the authors introduce a heterogeneous system based on zeolite-confined Rh clusters that is characterized by high efficiency for the hydroformylation of C₆–C₁₂ terminal olefins into linear aldehydes with high selectivity.

Photoredox-catalysed coupling of electron-rich aryl electrophiles based on simple nickel salts usually suffers from a slow oxidative addition. Now, it is shown that thianthrenation leads to more favourable redox properties of the substrates, alleviating this problem in carbon–heteroatom bond-forming reactions.

Direct stereoselective amination of tertiary C–H bonds without the assistance of directing groups is a challenging task in synthetic organic chemistry. Now a nitrene transferase is engineered to aminate tertiary C–H bonds with high enantioselectivity, providing direct access to valuable chiral α-tertiary primary amines.