Researchers at Cardiff University, United Kingdom, have found a way to activate the primary carbon-hydrogen bonds in toluene, a hydrocarbon widely used as an industrial material, at low temperatures. Current industrial processes for hydrocarbons, which are an extremely important energy resource, require very high temperatures. According to Graham Hutchings, one of the study’s co-authors and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, “[O]ne of the key challenges facing chemists today is to activate primary carbon-hydrogen bonds in hydrocarbons to make more valuable and reactive molecules. This is crucial for the sustainable exploitation of available industrial feedstocks. Our research resulted in unprecedented yields of a single product of over 90%. We achieved this using a gold catalyst, an unexpected result as gold is the most noble of the elements.” The new method developed by the Cardiff scientists opens up the possibility of using hydrocarbon feedstocks in a new way to form intermediates and final products for use in the chemical, pharmaceutical and agricultural business sectors.