Intermediate-temperature water splitting based on protonic ceramic electrolysis cells is a promising strategy that is far less explored than its low- and high-temperature counterparts. This Perspective explores its challenges and offers guidelines on the design of anode materials and catalysts.

Isotope labelling with ¹³C-carbon has become a popular technique used to understand carbon dioxide electroreduction mechanisms. However, isotopes of carbon exhibit complex selectivity effects, which need to be carefully considered in the experimental design to avoid misinterpretations.

The structure and properties of the electric double layer that forms at the electrode–electrolyte interface is crucial in determining the performance of electrocatalytic reactions. This Perspective puts forward and discusses three major schools of thought on electrolyte effects and electrocatalyst design.

This Review covers the recent advances in the field of hydrogen atom transfer catalysis mediated by photoexcited transition metals without the use of external photosensitizers.

The catalytic asymmetric Michael addition to α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is one of the most valuable methods for the construction of β-carbon chiral centres. Now the authors report a Pd-catalysed asymmetric anti-Michael-type addition of carboranes to α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds.

Light-driven enzymatic catalysis has enabled important abiological transformations in vitro. Now a cellular ene-reductase photoenzyme is integrated with a de novo-designed olefin biosynthetic pathway for photoinduced hydroalkylation, hydroamination and hydrosulfonylation reactions within cells.

The success of photocatalytic coupling of CH₄ has been limited by the low solar absorption of wide-bandgap semiconductors and the uncontrolled oxidation caused by radical oxygen species. Here a Pd/Co₃O₄ heterojunction derived from a metal–organic framework demonstrates the selective conversion of CH₄ to C₂H₆ by less reactive oxygen species under full-solar-spectrum irradiation.

Nickel-catalysed cross-coupling reactions generally use Ni(II) or Ni(0) precatalysts. Here the authors report thermally stable dinuclear Ni(I) complexes with commercial isocyanide ligands for the efficient catalysis in Kumada, Suzuki–Miyaura and Buchwald–Hartwig cross-coupling reactions.

Earth-abundant cobalt-based catalysts have shown promise to replace iridium as anode catalysts in proton-exchange-membrane water electrolysers, but unfortunately they exhibit high degradation rates. Now, a lanthanum and calcium co-modification of Co₃O₄ is presented, in which lanthanum tunes the water–surface interactions to suppress cobalt dissolution and improve stability, while calcium leaching creates coordinatively unsaturated cobalt sites, leading to enhanced activity.

Electrocatalysis is a powerful tool in organic synthesis, but asymmetric strategies are still less developed. Now a cobalt/pyridoxal electrocatalytic system facilitates electrochemical single-electron transfer and asymmetric induction for the enantioselective generation of α-quaternary amino esters.

This Editorial highlights some potential pitfalls occasionally encountered within point-to-point response letters to the reviewers.