Publications by authors named "Kaili Yao"
Article Synopsis
- Coupling light-driven hydrogen (H) evolution with benzyl alcohol (BA) oxidation offers a promising way to produce valuable fuels and chemicals to address energy and environmental challenges.
- A new type of S-scheme heterojunction catalyst, ZnCdS@yNiP, was developed using a template method, resulting in enhanced performance for both H production and benzaldehyde (BAD) generation.
- The research highlights the importance of designing effective heterojunctions and demonstrates that the ZnCdS@15%NiP catalyst significantly outperforms previous catalysts, as shown by various advanced characterization techniques.
The copper (Cu)-catalyzed electrochemical CO reduction provides a route for the synthesis of multicarbon (C) products. However, the thermodynamically favorable Cu surface (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElastic strains in metallic catalysts induce enhanced selectivity for carbon dioxide reduction (COR) toward valuable multicarbon (C) products. However, under working conditions, the structure of catalysts inevitably undergoes reconstruction, hardly retaining the initial strain. Herein, we present a metal/metal oxide synthetic strategy to introduce and maintain the tensile strain in a copper/ceria heterostructure, enabled by the presence of a thin interface layer of CuO/CeO.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The formation of carbon-carbon (C-C) bonds is crucial for converting CO into high-energy carbon products, with ongoing debates about the best methods to achieve this.
- Recent computational studies suggest that the OC-COH coupling pathway may be more efficient than the traditional CO dimerization pathway under certain conditions, though experimental validation has been limited.
- Using novel low-coordinated copper catalysts, researchers achieved a 77.8% efficiency in producing carbon products, and experimental techniques confirmed the presence of a key intermediate, supporting the OC-COH pathway for CO reduction.
Metal borides/borates have been considered promising as oxygen evolution reaction catalysts; however, to date, there is a dearth of evidence of long-term stability at practical current densities. Here we report a phase composition modulation approach to fabricate effective borides/borates-based catalysts. We find that metal borides in-situ formed metal borates are responsible for their high activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlasmonic nanoparticles are ideal candidates for hot-electron-assisted applications, but their narrow resonance region and limited hotspot number hindered the energy utilization of broadband solar energy. Inspired by tree branches, we designed and chemically synthesized silver fractals, which enable self-constructed hotspots and multiple plasmonic resonances, extending the broadband generation of hot electrons for better matching with the solar radiation spectrum. We directly revealed the plasmonic origin, the spatial distribution, and the decay dynamics of hot electrons on the single-particle level by using simulation, dark-field spectroscopy, pump-probe measurements, and electron energy loss spectroscopy.
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