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Research Article Issue
Room-temperature ligancy engineering of perovskite electrocatalyst for enhanced electrochemical water oxidation
Nano Research 2019, 12 (9): 2296-2301
Published: 25 April 2019
Downloads:24

Perovskite oxides are significant candidates to develop electrochemical catalysts for water oxidation in consideration of their high catalysis capacity, low costing and excellent stability. Rational design of coordination structure and overcoming poor electronic transport are regarded as critical factors for outstanding perovskite-based oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. Herein, we report a mild chemical oxidation method to realize ligancy engineering from strongly-correlated brownmillerite Sr2Co2O5 to perovskite phase Sr2Co2O55, along with abundant oxygen vacancies formation and greatly boosted electric conductivity, which helps to form the active species of Co hydroxide/oxide on the surface of catalysts. The coupling effect of catalytic kinetics and unimpeded electronic movement brings high OER activities in Sr2Co2O55with a low onset potential and a small Tafel slope. Our work not only displays in-depth understanding into the relationship among catalysis performance and multiple physical degrees of freedom, but also paves a new path to develop high-efficient electrochemical catalysts.

Research Article Issue
Surface-adsorbed ions on TiO2 nanosheets for selective photocatalytic CO2 reduction
Nano Research 2018, 11 (6): 3362-3370
Published: 22 May 2018
Downloads:19

A method based on the adsorption of ions on the surface of two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets has been developed for photocatalytic CO2 reduction. Isolated Bi ions, confined on the surface of TiO2 nanosheets using a simple ionic adsorption method facilitate the formation of a built-in electric field that effectively promotes charge carrier separation. This leads to an improved performance of the photocatalytic CO2 reduction process with the preferred conversion to CH4. The proposed surface ion-adsorption method is expected to provide an effective approach for the design of highly efficient photocatalytic systems. These findings could be very valuable in photocatalytic CO2 reduction applications.

Research Article Issue
Metallic mesocrystal nanosheets of vanadium nitride for high-performance all-solid-state pseudocapacitors
Nano Research 2015, 8 (1): 193-200
Published: 18 November 2014
Downloads:25

Transition metal nitrides (TMNs) are of particular interest by virtue of their synergic advantages of superior electrical conductivity, excellent environmental durability and high reaction selectivity, yet it is difficult to achieve flexible design and operation. Herein, mesocrystal nanosheets (MCNSs) of vanadium nitride (VN) are synthesized via a confined-growth route from thermally stable layered vanadium bronze, representing the first two-dimensional (2D) metallic mesocrystal in inorganic compounds. Benefiting from their single-crystalline-like long-range electronic connectivity, VN MCNSs deliver an electrical conductivity of 1.44 × 105 S/m at room temperature, among the highest values observed for 2D nanosheets. Coupled with their unique pseudocapacitance, VN MCNS-based flexible supercapacitors afford a superior volumetric capacitance of 1, 937 mF/cm3. Nitride MCNSs should have wide applications in the energy storage and conversion fields because their intrinsic high conductivity is coupled with the reactivity of inorganic lattices.

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