Improving cobalt catalysts: Tethering molecular catalysts together is a tried and trusted method for making them easier to purify and reuse. Lin et al. now show that the assembly of a covalent organic framework (COF) structure can also improve fundamental catalytic performance. They used cobalt porphyrin complexes as building blocks for a COF. The resulting material showed greatly enhanced activity for the aqueous electrochemical reduction of CO ₂ to CO. Science , this issue p. 1208

Electrochemistry has recently gained increased attention as a versatile strategy for achieving challenging transformations at the forefront of synthetic organic chemistry.

A charged approach to forming C–N bonds: Adjacent carbon-nitrogen bonds often appear in chemical compounds of pharmaceutical interest. Fu et al. developed a versatile method to form these bonds by pairing manganese catalysis with electrochemical azide oxidation in the presence of olefins. A major advantage of the electrochemical approach is the tunable precision of its oxidizing power, which leaves other sensitive substituents such as alcohols and aldehydes intact. The reaction proceeded over several hours at room temperature, forming hydrogen at the counter electrode as a benign by-product. Science , this issue p. 575