Electric field flicks switch for bond breaking reaction
Proof that electrostatics can selectively power up one reaction in a multistep process
An electric field can be tuned to selectively catalyse one reaction – an aromatisation – in a multistep cascade, researchers in China have discovered. The experiment, run in a nanoreactor with individual molecules, shows how the electrostatic field speeds up the aromatisation by an order or magnitude. Scientists have now made another step towards controlling chemistry with electric fields. For the first time, they tuned the field’s orientation so that it only catalyses one reaction in a two-step cascade.