Identification of Single-Atom Ni Site Active toward Electrochemical CO Conversion to CO.

Electrocatalytic conversion of CO into value-added products offers a new paradigm for a sustainable carbon economy. For active CO electrolysis, the single-atom Ni catalyst has been proposed as promising from experiments, but an idealized Ni-N site shows an unfavorable energetics from theory, leading to many debates on the chemical nature responsible for high activity. To resolve this conundrum, here we investigated CO electrolysis of Ni sites with well-defined coordination, tetraphenylporphyrin (N-TPP) and 21-oxatetraphenylporphyrin (NO-TPP).

Carbon Monoxide as a Promoter of Atomically Dispersed Platinum Catalyst in Electrochemical Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.

Carbon monoxide is widely known to poison Pt during heterogeneous catalysis owing to its strong donor-acceptor binding ability. Herein, we report a counterintuitive phenomenon of this general paradigm when the size of Pt decreases to an atomic level, namely, the CO-promoting Pt electrocatalysis toward hydrogen evolution reactions (HER). Compared to pristine atomic Pt catalyst, reduction current on a CO-modified catalyst increases significantly.

Rational Design of a Hierarchical Tin Dendrite Electrode for Efficient Electrochemical Reduction of CO2.

Catalysis is a key technology for the synthesis of renewable fuels through electrochemical reduction of CO2 . However, successful CO2 reduction still suffers from the lack of affordable catalyst design and understanding the factors governing catalysis. Herein, we demonstrate that the CO2 conversion selectivity on Sn (or SnOx /Sn) electrodes is correlated to the native oxygen content at the subsurface.

Long-range electron transfer over graphene-based catalyst for high-performing oxygen reduction reactions: importance of size, N-doping, and metallic impurities.

N-doped carbon materials are considered as next-generation oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts for fuel cells due to their prolonged stability and low cost. However, the underlying mechanism of these catalysts has been only insufficiently identified, preventing the rational design of high-performing catalysts. Here, we show that the first electron is transferred into O2 molecules at the outer Helmholtz plane (ET-OHP) over a long range.

Additional doping of phosphorus and/or sulfur into nitrogen-doped carbon for efficient oxygen reduction reaction in acidic media.

Phosphorus and/or sulfur are additionally doped into N-doped carbon (NDC) using phosphoric acid and cysteine. The resulting catalysts demonstrate excellent oxygen reduction activities coupled with high stabilities in acidic media. Specially, additional S-doping in NDC reveals nearly 2.