Methanol—a colourless liquid that can be made from agricultural waste—has long been touted as a green alternative to fossil fuels. But it’s toxic and only has half the energy as the same volume of gasoline. Now, Chao-Jun Li and colleagues report they’ve created a potentially cheap way to use sunlight to convert methanol to ethanol, a more popular alternative fuel that’s less harmful and carries more energy.

A tiny bit of silver, combined with water and air, can convert aldehydes into acids efficiently -- instead of the classical methods using stoichiometric amounts of expensive or toxic metal oxidants, according to a new study by McGill University researchers.