10 July 2023
Our understanding of aromaticity, a concept that underpins life itself, has been thrown into chaos. But from the ashes have risen powerful new tools including supercharged solar cells and a Jekyll-and-Hyde material powered by "antiaromaticity"
6 March 2023
Creating a porous liquid long seemed impossible. But now we are making them in earnest and they could prove exceedingly handy in industrial chemistry, greenhouse gas storage and even emergency medicine
15 February 2023
As we speed towards a mysterious new bubble of interstellar space, new insights are revealing its exotic chemistry, strange waves and vast bubbles, and their ramifications for life on Earth
2 March 2022
How inanimate molecules first arranged themselves into life is one of the great mysteries. The answer could lie in a systematic exploration of chemical space
2 March 2022
Making new molecules to treat disease has relied upon the painstaking art of synthetic chemistry, but now we're developing robots that could do it all for us
2 March 2022
Untold amounts of plastic waste is polluting our land and seas. Now, we're using chemical tricks to design infinitely and easily recyclable materials
2 March 2022
The batteries we need to power the transition to 100-per-cent renewable electricity require rare metals, and that means destructive mining – but researchers are working on alternatives
2 March 2022
Remove a billion tonnes of methane from the air and we could cool Earth by 0.2°C, extending the window of opportunity to remove carbon dioxide before it is too late
2 March 2022
Machines made of atoms are being used to sew together new materials molecule by molecule, which could open the floodgates to all manner of innovation
2 March 2022
Converting sunlight into liquid fuel through artificial photosynthesis would be a huge environmental victory – and the latest prototypes look surprisingly effective
