Bio-based hydrogels induced by salts.

In this study, we introduce a salt-responsive hydrogel system utilizing a sugar-derived surfactant featuring a polyhydroxy spacer in its headgroup. The inclusion of salts enhances and organizes the intermolecular hydrogen bonding within the hydrophilic region of the polyhydroxy spacer, promoting cross-linking among surfactant molecules.

Switching CO Electroreduction Pathways between Ethylene and Ethanol via Tuning Microenvironment of the Coating on Copper Nanofibers.

Engineering the microenvironment of electrode surface is one of the effective means to tune the reaction pathways in CORR. In this work, we prepared copper nanofibers with conductive polypyrrole coating by polymerization of pyrrole using polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) as template. As a result, the obtained copper nanofibers Cu/CuO/SHNC, exhibited a superhydrophobic surface, which demonstrated very high selectivity for ethanol with a Faraday efficiency (FE) of 66.

Switching Reaction Pathways of CO Electroreduction by Modulating Cations in the Electrochemical Double Layer.

Tuning the selectivity of CO electroreduction reaction (CORR) solely by changing electrolyte is a very attractive topic. In this study, we conducted CORR in different aqueous electrolytes over bulk metal electrodes. It was discovered that controlled CORR could be achieved by modulating cations in the electrochemical double layer.

Highly efficient zinc electrode prepared by electro-deposition in a salt-induced pre-phase separation region solution.

Efficient electrode design is crucial for the electrochemical reduction of CO to produce valuable chemicals. The solution used for the preparation of electrodes can affect their overall properties, which in turn determine the reaction efficiency. In this work, we report that transition metal salts could induce the change of two-phase ionic liquid/ethanol mixture into miscible one phase.

Ternary Ionic-Liquid-Based Electrolyte Enables Efficient Electro-reduction of CO over Bulk Metal Electrodes.

Using bulk metals as catalysts to get high efficiency in electro-reduction of CO is ideal but challenging. Here, we report the coupling of bulk metal electrodes and a ternary ionic-liquid-based electrolyte, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate/1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate/MeCN to realize highly efficient electro-reduction of CO to CO. Over various bulk metal electrodes, the ternary electrolyte not only increases the current density but also suppresses the hydrogen evolution reaction to obtain a high Faradaic efficiency (FE) toward CO.