Solvothermal Synthesis of Medium-Entropy Oxide Spheres for Thermocatalytic Conversion of CO to Methanol.

New chemical compositions and structures for medium- and high-entropy oxides (HEOs) currently represent a promising new avenue in materials research for a wide range of applications including catalysis, energy storage, and ceramics. To speed up further development, synthesis methods for multicationic oxides are needed for controlling features like morphology, porosity, and chemical compositions. In this work, mesoporous spinel oxide spheres with five cations are synthesized using solvothermal synthesis techniques.

Precise Size Determination of Supported Catalyst Nanoparticles via Generative AI and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy.

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) plays a crucial role in heterogeneous catalysis for assessing the size distribution of supported metal nanoparticles. Typically, nanoparticle size is quantified by measuring the diameter under the assumption of spherical geometry, a simplification that limits the precision needed for advancing synthesis-structure-performance relationships. Currently, there is a lack of techniques that can reliably extract more meaningful information from atomically resolved TEM images, like nuclearity or geometry.

{CoO} Cubanes in a conducting polymer matrix as bio-inspired molecular oxygen evolution catalysts.

Exploration of efficient molecular water oxidation catalysts for long-term application remains a key challenge for the conversion of renewable energy sources into fuels. Cuboidal {CoO} complexes keep attracting interest as molecular water oxidation catalysts as they combine features of both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis with bio-inspired motifs. However, the application of many cluster-based catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction still requires new stabilization strategies.

Mechanochemically-derived iron atoms on defective boron nitride for stable propylene production.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs), possessing a uniform metal site structure, are a promising class of materials for selective oxidations of hydrocarbons. However, their design for targeted applications requires careful choice of metal-host combinations and suitable synthetic techniques. Here, we report iron atoms stabilised on defective hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) mechanochemical activation in a ball mill as an effective catalyst for propylene production NO-mediated oxidative propane dehydrogenation (NO-ODHP), reaching 95% selectivity at 6% propane conversion and maintaining stable performance for 40 h on stream.

Localization and segmentation of atomic columns in supported nanoparticles for fast scanning transmission electron microscopy.

To accurately capture the dynamic behavior of small nanoparticles in scanning transmission electron microscopy, high-quality data and advanced data processing is needed. The fast scan rate required to observe structural dynamics inherently leads to very noisy data where machine learning tools are essential for unbiased analysis. In this study, we develop a workflow based on two U-Net architectures to automatically localize and classify atomic columns at particle-support interfaces.