A room temperature rechargeable LiO-based lithium-air battery enabled by a solid electrolyte.

A lithium-air battery based on lithium oxide (LiO) formation can theoretically deliver an energy density that is comparable to that of gasoline. Lithium oxide formation involves a four-electron reaction that is more difficult to achieve than the one- and two-electron reaction processes that result in lithium superoxide (LiO) and lithium peroxide (LiO), respectively. By using a composite polymer electrolyte based on LiGePS nanoparticles embedded in a modified polyethylene oxide polymer matrix, we found that LiO is the main product in a room temperature solid-state lithium-air battery.

Gold-like activity copper-like selectivity of heteroatomic transition metal carbides for electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction.

An overarching challenge of the electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (eCORR) is finding an earth-abundant, highly active catalyst that selectively produces hydrocarbons at relatively low overpotentials. Here, we report the eCORR performance of two-dimensional transition metal carbide class of materials. Our results indicate a maximum methane (CH) current density of -421.

Kinetically Stable Oxide Overlayers on Mo P Nanoparticles Enabling Lithium-Air Batteries with Low Overpotentials and Long Cycle Life.

The main drawbacks of today's state-of-the-art lithium-air (Li-air) batteries are their low energy efficiency and limited cycle life due to the lack of earth-abundant cathode catalysts that can drive both oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR and OER) at high rates at thermodynamic potentials. Here, inexpensive trimolybdenum phosphide (Mo P) nanoparticles with an exceptional activity-ORR and OER current densities of 7.21 and 6.

Oxygen Functionalized Copper Nanoparticles for Solar-Driven Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Methane.

Solar conversion of carbon dioxide (CO) into hydrocarbon fuels offers a promising approach to fulfill the world's ever-increasing energy demands in a sustainable way. However, a highly active catalyst that can also tune the selectivity toward desired products must be developed for an effective process. Here, we present oxygen functionalized copper (OFn-Cu) nanoparticles as a highly active and methane (CH) selective catalyst for the electrocatalytic CO reduction reaction.