Nature Chemistry, Published online: 04 October 2024; doi:10.1038/s41557-024-01648-0Understanding how photoswitchable chiral dopants can control the helical pitch of host liquid crystals will aid the development of smart and adaptive soft materials. Now the molecular-level mechanisms that control the chirality transfer in chiral triptycene-containing...

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 04 October 2024; doi:10.1038/s41557-024-01592-zMalononitriles are widely used precursors for the synthesis of diverse enantioenriched nitrogen-containing molecules, but controlling the stereochemistry of their asymmetric transformations is challenging. Now, the desymmetric reduction of disubstituted malononitriles...

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 04 October 2024; doi:10.1038/s41557-024-01650-6Although molecular complexes can serve as well-defined model catalysts for CO2 electroreduction, few compounds reduce CO2 beyond two electrons. Now, hydrophobic molecular cobalt terpyridine complexes, containing perfluorinated alkyl side chains, have been shown to assemble...