@article{Liu2026, 
author = {Jvwei Liu and Qiang Zhang and Conglin Chen and Shenjie Zhang and Jiaxin Jiang and Junqiang Xu},
title = {Tuning Lewis acid in nickel-containing polyoxometalates for enhanced ethanol selectivity of methane electrooxidation reactions},
year = {2026},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {19},
number = {5},
pages = {94908604},
keywords = {Lewis acid, polyoxometalates (POMs), oxygen vacancy, methane electrooxidation, selectivity},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/NR.2026.94908604},
doi = {10.26599/NR.2026.94908604},
abstract = {The electrocatalytic oxidation of methane (CH4) facilitates the direct conversion of abundant natural gas into value-added chemicals utilizing renewable electricity. However, the high dissociation energy of the C–H bond and the presence of multiple competing reaction pathways lead to poor product selectivity. We synthesized a Ni-based polyoxometalate (Ni-POM-VO) through cluster-nucleus co-assembly and introduced rich oxygen vacancies using N2 cold plasma etching. The optimized catalyst attained a Faradaic efficiency of 88.4% for ethanol at 1.7 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Notably, the oxygen vacancies in Ni-POM-VO create Lewis acid sites that enhance methane adsorption and activation, thereby facilitating its conversion into *CH2 and *CH2OH intermediates. The subsequent adsorption of these intermediates onto the polyoxometalate (POM) framework promotes C–C coupling, resulting in ethanol production. This work provides a new method for adjusting the Lewis acid content on the catalyst surface through oxygen vacancies, improving the selectivity of methane electro oxidation to ethanol.}
}