Questioning claims of monitoring the Michael addition reaction at the single-molecule level

Arising from C. Yang et al. Nature Chemistry https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-023-01212-2 (2023) In this work Yang et al.1 claim that an enantioselective Michael addition reaction with a barrier of 16 kcal mol−1 occurs at the single-molecule level in frozen solvent by measuring fluctuations in current flowing across graphene-based molecular devices. The article, however, contains major scientific errors that undermine their conclusions. We highlight issues with the fabrication of the devices, a lack of characterization, discrepancies between theory and experiment, unreliable inelastic electron tunnelling spectra (IETS) and a perceived misinterpretation of noise as evidence of reaction.