The isolation of secondary and primary carbon radical species is challenging, owing to their instability. Now the reduction of an acyclic bis(imino)carbene conjugate acid enables the isolation of a stable pentadienyl-type radical. In silico and in vitro probing of its properties reveal a propensity to act as a secondary carbon radical.

Acid-triggered reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer polymerizations, in the absence of conventional initiating species and in the dark, are reported to prepare polymers with low dispersity and high end-group fidelity. The protonation of monomers catalyses both the initiation and propagation steps and can also be applied to free radical polymerizations.

The synthesis of high-nuclearity copper(I) nanoclusters remains challenging due to their low stability. Now four high-nuclearity Cu(I) nanoclusters have been successfully isolated by introducing a bifunctional phosphoramide ligand into the Cu/RC≡CH assembly system, enhancing complex stability through cooperative bonding.

Enzymatic C–Se bond forming reactions are rare. Now an enzymatic method for the synthesis of organoselenium compounds is reported using an ‘element engineering’ strategy. This method allows selenium analogues of cysteine, thiamine and a chuangxinmycin derivative to be produced using sulfur carrier proteins.

High-index facet nanostructures are deliberately targeted and synthesized by using a data-driven approach that integrates high-throughput density functional theory calculations, machine learning and experimental validation. The effectiveness of this approach is shown by the discovery and subsequent synthesis of seven monometallic and four multimetallic tetrahexahedron-shaped high-index facet nanoparticles.

The rational design and synthesis of dual-atom catalysts with structurally uniform and flexible active sites remains challenging. Now the tailored synthesis of a Janus Fe–Co dual-metal catalyst is reported in which the Fe and Co atoms are coordinated to N and O, respectively, and linked through bridging N and O atoms.

An unstrained allylic C(sp³)–C(sp³) bond is transformed into a new C(sp³)–C(sp³) bond enantioselectively with palladium catalysts via kinetic resolution or dynamic kinetic asymmetric transformation (DYKAT). Mechanistic experiments and density functional theory calculations reveal that the deracemization needed for DYKAT occurs via the formation of diene intermediates.

Automated iterative small-molecule synthesis has generally been limited to around one carbon–carbon bond-forming step per day. Now, a next-generation automated synthesizer enables rapid, automated, iterative synthesis of a variety of small molecules. Improvements to chemistry and automation leads to a tenfold decrease in reaction time over previous automated platforms.

Electrochemical methods have great potential to help achieve net-zero emissions. Here, a method to synthesize ethylene carbonate is reported, which is electrochemically initiated and enables the concurrent production of hydrogen, capture of CO₂ and subsequent conversion of the captured CO₂ during ethylene carbonate synthesis.

Exploring artificial photosynthesis with water, air and light is a challenging goal. Here, a donor–acceptor porous framework photocatalyst enables efficient production of hydrogen peroxide from aerated water under ambient conditions.

The electrochemical construction of C–N bonds from abundant CO₂ and nitrogenous sources is of interest for the sustainable synthesis of value-added organonitrogen compounds, which requires comprehensive considerations of electrocatalysts, the interface microenvironment, mechanisms, reactors and paired reactions to push this area towards competition with traditional thermochemical methods.

Irreproducible synthetic methods consume time, money, and resources. Here, we highlight the steps Nature Synthesis takes to help authors make their synthetic procedures as reproducible as possible.