From computational screening to the synthesis of a promising OER catalyst.

The search for new materials can be laborious and expensive. Given the challenges that mankind faces today concerning the climate change crisis, the need to accelerate materials discovery for applications like water-splitting could be very relevant for a renewable economy. In this work, we introduce a computational framework to predict the activity of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts, in order to accelerate the discovery of materials that can facilitate water splitting.

High entropy liquid electrolytes for lithium batteries.

High-entropy alloys/compounds have large configurational entropy by introducing multiple components, showing improved functional properties that exceed those of conventional materials. However, how increasing entropy impacts the thermodynamic/kinetic properties in liquids that are ambiguous. Here we show this strategy in liquid electrolytes for rechargeable lithium batteries, demonstrating the substantial impact of raising the entropy of electrolytes by introducing multiple salts.

Entropy-Driven Liquid Electrolytes for Lithium Batteries.

Developing liquid electrolytes with higher kinetics and enhanced interphase stability is one of the key challenges for lithium batteries. However, the poor solubility of lithium salts in solvents sets constraints that compromises the electrolyte properties. Here, it is shown that introducing multiple salts to form a high-entropy solution, alters the solvation structure, which can be used to raise the solubility of specific salts and stabilize electrode-electrolyte interphases.

The next big thing for silicon nanostructures - CO photocatalysis.

Silicene is a relatively new member of the growing family of two-dimensional single-element materials. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches provide access to silicene, the former via vapor deposition on a substrate and the latter via exfoliation of the layered CaSi2 precursor. Most top-down research has been concerned with understanding the various electronic, optical, magnetic, mechanical, electrical, thermal transport and gas-adsorption properties of silicene.

Nickel@Siloxene catalytic nanosheets for high-performance CO methanation.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are of considerable interest for catalyzing the heterogeneous conversion of CO to synthetic fuels. In this regard, 2D siloxene nanosheets, have escaped thorough exploration, despite being composed of earth-abundant elements. Herein we demonstrate the remarkable catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability of a nickel@siloxene nanocomposite; it is found that this promising catalytic performance is highly sensitive to the location of the nickel component, being on either the interior or the exterior of adjacent siloxene nanosheets.