The practical application of high-capacity transition-metal sulfide anodes has been hampered by the poor rate capability and cycling performance. As recently reported in Matter, Yang and co-workers have developed a robust micro-truss structural Cu1.81S material with excellent mechanical strength for high-performance sodium-ion batteries.

In this issue of Chem, Kondo and co-workers report a facile soft-chemical method for the preparation of layered, electrically conductive hydrogen boride, which is short-range order but amorphous as a result of the geometrical frustration of the terminal B–H bonds. This work offers an alternative route to two-dimensional (2D) boron materials.

Imagine you were given an isotropic ball-shaped object of nanometer dimensions and you’d have to neatly decorate it in specific positions. This would certainly be a difficult task, even more so if the ball were rotating rapidly. In this issue of Chem, Ribas and co-workers use a nanocage for regioselective functionalization of fullerenes.

Strong light-matter interaction with confined electromagnetic fields has emerged as a potential route to manipulate chemical reactivity and dynamics even in the absence of laser driving. In this issue of Chem, Fregoni et al. predict that the isomerization quantum yields of azobenzene can be enhanced inside a plasmonic nanocavity in comparison with free space, by performing a realistic non-adiabatic quantum trajectory study that does not neglect photonic dissipation. This prediction contradicts previous model calculations and thus may stimulate further experimental work.

In this issue of Chem, Zuo and coworkers report an exciting new strategy for the deconstructive functionalization of ketones. Through merging Lewis-acid-catalyzed nucleophilic 1,2-addition and ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT)-promoted C–C cleavage, common strained and unstrained ketones are transformed into synthetically valuable scaffolds with high efficiency under mild conditions.

Specialists in molecule making often employ the counterintuitive retrosynthetic strategy of initially increasing molecular complexity en route to simpler starting materials to produce synthetic sequences of unparalleled brevity. In this issue of Chem, Gryzbowski and co-workers describe how a computer algorithm can similarly identify these so-called “tactical combinations” and powerfully apply them to automatically identify highly efficient routes to complex molecular targets. Although computers can’t yet outperform masters of synthetic organic chemistry, this breakthrough suggests that this day is coming.

In this issue of Chem, Fujita and co-workers investigate the self-assembly of peptide-based ligands with silver ions. Through selective crystallization they were able to isolate a molecular septafoil knot and a quadruply braided [2]catenane (821 link)—entangled molecules that had, until now, evaded realization.

Molecular nitrogen (N2) has been long believed to be an inert gas. Recently in Nature Catalysis, Duan et al. reported that N2 could dramatically promote the catalytic performance of hydrodeoxygenation over ruthenium-based catalysts and that as-formed hydrogenated nitrogen species contributed to the reduction of the activation energy required for carbon-oxygen bond cleavage inside p-cresol.

The spectral behavior of molecular aggregates has been successfully understood in terms of Kasha’s model. In this issue of Chem, Chuang et al. describe a generalization to explain the spectral behavior of two-dimensional molecular aggregates. They provide a spectral handle to determine the slip between molecules in the two-dimensional packing.

The prohibition of single-atom catalysts (SACs) to aggregate is challenging for further investigations. In this issue of Chem, Ding et al. establish a novel and general stabilization strategy based on the electrostatic interaction between ionic liquids and SACs.

Advances in molecular computing have been thwarted by the lack of theoretical underpinnings that are both generalizable and experimentally practical. In a recent issue of iScience, Dueñas-Díez and Pérez-Mercader begin to fill this void by illustrating the correspondence between Chomsky’s hierarchy of formal grammars and example chemical automata.

Chiral piperidines represent the most common heterocycles in small-molecule medicines. In this issue of Chem, Nagib and co-workers describe the development of an enantioselective remote cyanation of amines via copper-catalyzed radical relay. This represents a unique example of asymmetric interrupted Hofmann-Löffler reactivity and leads to the straightforward assembly of chiral piperidines.

In the November issue of Chem, Xiong and coworkers report the method of fine-tuning Fe atom numbers in Fe clusters coordinated to N on C. Compared with mono- and tri-iron centers, the di-iron center exhibited higher electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction because it promoted side-on adsorption of O2.

The non-redox fixation of CO2 in cyclic and polymeric carbonates is regarded as one of the most promising technologies for small-scale CO2 utilization. Yet, most heterogeneous catalysts reported to date require the use of co-catalysts, harsh reaction conditions, and non-base metals. In this issue of Chem, Yavuz and coworkers report the one-step synthesis of a new covalent organic polymer that circumvents these issues.

Unimolecular decomposition pathways are challenging to address in transition-metal catalysis and have previously not been suppressed via incorporation into a solid support. Two robust metal-organic frameworks (IRMOF-10 and bio-MOF-100) are used for the architectural stabilization of a structurally well-defined gold(III) catalyst. The inherent rigidity of these materials is utilized to preclude a unimolecular decomposition pathway—reductive elimination. Through this architectural stabilization strategy, decomposition of the incorporated gold(III) catalyst in the metal-organic frameworks is not observed; in contrast, the homogeneous analog is prone to decomposition in solution. Stabilization of the catalyst in these metal-organic frameworks precludes leaching and enables recyclability, which is crucial for productive heterogeneous catalysis.

Evaporation-condensation of red phosphorous to prepare phosphorous-based anodes inevitably generates white P residual, severely limiting its practical application due to the serious safety concern. Rather than removing the white P residual by complicated post-treatments, essentially prohibiting the generation of white P is a more meaningful alternative, but unfortunately it has been rarely studied so far. Herein, we demonstrate that the generation of white P can be substantially suppressed via sulfur-mediated phosphorous activation. Moreover, the prepared sulfur-doped P also exhibits the ever-reported fastest redox kinetics for sodium-ion storage. Electron spin resonance spectra and density functional theory calculations reveal that the introduced sulfur lives in the high-spin state during the evaporation-condensation process, which could activate P4 for polymerization. Meanwhile, sulfur-induced electron delocalization can also accelerate the Na-P redox kinetics. The capability to modulate phosphorus polymerization via the high-spin mediator could revolutionize the application of phosphorous for batteries and beyond.

In the October issue of Chem, Ben Zhong Tang and co-workers develop a new one-for-all organic agent for triple-modality imaging-guided cancer surgery, in which the fluorescence, photoacoustic (PA), and Raman properties could be precisely tuned and boosted by tuning the molecular structure and intramolecular motions.

In this issue of Chem, Glorius and coworkers report the first photocatalytic dearomative cycloaddition of pyridine with alkene. High-value isoquinuclidines could be easily assembled from N-cinamoyl picolinamides under mild and operationally simple conditions.

Wei Zhu is an associate professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology. His research focuses on the development of catalysts and devices for energy-related electrochemical applications. Chen Chen joined the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University as an associate professor in 2015. His research focuses on catalyst design and mechanism study at the atomic scale for catalytic activation reactions of small molecules.

Xuning Li is a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He earned his PhD at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) in 2017. His current research interest focuses on in situ/operando characterization techniques in single-atom catalysis. Yanqiang Huang received his PhD from DICP in 2008. Afterward, he joined DICP as a staff scientist and was promoted to full professor in 2016. His research interests include propellant catalytic decomposition, CO2 capture and utilization, and C1 chemistry. Bin Liu received his PhD from the University of Minnesota (2011) and then moved to the University of California, Berkeley, as a postdoctoral researcher (2012). He is now an associate professor at NTU. His main research interests are electrocatalysis, photovoltaics, and photo-electrochemistry.