Molecular Hydrophobicity Signature in Charged Bidimensional Clay Materials.

The unraveling of the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity molecular signature of nanometric bidimensional confined systems represents a challenging task with repercussions in environmental transport processes. Swelling clay minerals represent an ideal model system, as hydrophobicity can be modified during material synthesis by substituting hydroxyls by fluorine in the structure, without additional surface treatment. This following work presents a combined approach, integrating experimental inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, with the objective of advancing our understanding of the role of surface hydroxylation/fluorination and the extent of confinement on water properties.

Correlating Substrate Reactivity at Electrified Interfaces with the Electrolyte Structure in Synthetically Relevant Organic Solvent/Water Mixtures.

Optimizing electrosynthetic reactions requires fine tuning of a vast chemical space, including charge transfer at electrocatalyst/electrode surfaces, engineering of mass transport limitations, and complex interactions of reactants and products with their environment. Hybrid electrolytes, in which supporting salt ions and substrates are dissolved in a binary mixture of organic solvent and water, represent a new piece of this complex puzzle as they offer a unique opportunity to harness water as the oxygen or proton source in electrosynthesis. In this work, we demonstrate that modulating water-organic solvent interactions drastically impacts the solvation properties of hybrid electrolytes.

Crystalline restacking of 2D-materials from their nanosheets suspensions.

We report here the highly ordered restacking of the layered phosphatoantimonic dielectric materials HMSbPO, (where M = Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and 0 ≤ ≤ 1), from their nanosheets dispersed in colloidal suspension, induced by a simple pH change using alkaline bases. HSbPO aqueous suspensions are some of the rare examples of colloidal suspensions based on 2D materials exhibiting a lamellar liquid crystalline phase. Because the lamellar period can reach several hundred nanometers, the suspensions show vivid structural colors and because these colors are sensitive to various chemicals, the suspensions can be used as sensors.