The fate of nanoparticle surface chemistry during reductive electrosynthesis in aprotic media.

Reductive electrochemical coupling of carbon dioxide with organic molecules (electrocarboxylation, EC) represents a green route towards value-added carboxylic acids and serves as a promising strategy for carbon footprint mitigation. Despite the industrial prospects of this synthetic process, little has been done towards the optimization of cathode materials at the nanoscale. Herein, we pave the way towards the use of metal nanoparticles (NPs) as electrocatalysts in EC by demonstrating the effects of NP surface chemistry on electroorganic transformations and the evolution of surface functionalization in the course of reductive electrosynthesis in aprotic media.

Shape control in seed-mediated synthesis of non-elongated Cu nanoparticles and their optical properties.

Shape and surface chemistry control in copper nanoparticle synthesis is an important research area due to a wide range of developing applications of this material in catalysis, energy conversion, sensing and many others. In addition to being an inexpensive and abundant metal, copper is an attractive photocatalyst due to its optical properties in the visible range. Here, we report a facile, tunable and sustainable methodology for synthesizing Pd-seeded Cu nanoparticles with various shapes, including cubes, spheres, raspberry-like particles and cages stabilized with a bilayer of a cationic surfactant in aqueous media.

Inductive effects in cobalt-doped nickel hydroxide electronic structure facilitating urea electrooxidation.

Electrochemical oxidation of urea provides an approach to prevent excess urea emissions into the environment while generating value by capturing chemical energy from waste. Unfortunately, the source of high catalytic activity in state-of-the-art doped nickel catalysts for urea oxidation reaction (UOR) activity remains poorly understood, hindering the rational design of new catalyst materials. In particular, the exact role of cobalt as a dopant in Ni(OH) to maximize the intrinsic activity towards UOR remains unclear.