Jingjing Duan

An asymmetric Cu–N ₃ C ₁ bridge in carbon nitride creates a polarization field to drive interlayer electron transfer and bypass the excitonic bottleneck, revealing the vital role of single atoms in steering ultrafast charge dynamics for photocatalysis.

Atomically dispersed catalysts offer the merits of theoretically maximum atomic utilization and adjustable electronic properties. While the current research focuses on single-atom catalysts, new opportunities would be opened by constructing dual-atom catalysts via adding a second single-atom site. This strategy can enhance their applications in many catalytic reactions. Nevertheless, the design of dual-atom catalysts can be influenced by many factors (e.g., elemental compositions and atomic positions), which exponentially increase the complexity of catalyst optimization. As exemplified by nitrogen fixation, here we employ machine learning (ML) to accelerate the screening of potential dual-atom catalysts. Through ML-driven predictions, we identified a CrNi/MoSe₂ catalytic system with an ultralow limiting potential of −0.45 eV. Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) computations were conducted to unravel the underlying mechanisms. Moreover, experiments have verified that the synthesized CrNi/MoSe₂ has high electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction performance. Our findings would provide a robust framework for exploring new catalysts in energy conversion systems, paving the way for future catalyst design.

Aqueous Zn–CO ₂ batteries (AZCBs) could convert CO ₂ into valuables and generate electricity simultaneously.

Aqueous Zn‐CO ₂ batteries (AZCBs) generate electricity and convert CO ₂ into valuable products simultaneously, while their development is limited due to poor mass transport, low reactivity, etc. Therefore, we develop AZCBs featuring flowing CO ₂ gases and electrolytes, gas‐diffusion cathodes, and especially a pseudo‐zero interelectrode distance. By employing carbon‐coated bismuth oxides (Bi ₂ O ₃ /C) as the cathode in a pseudo‐zero‐gap AZCB, a record‐high peak power density of 67.0 mW cm ⁻² @current density of 117.5 mA cm ⁻² is achieved, together with excellent cycling performance over 600 cycles. Specifically, the near‐zero distance greatly promotes hydroxide ion transport and CO ₂ diffusion by establishing an enhanced concentration gradient at the reaction interface of CO ₂ electroreduction. Theoretical simulations further indicate preferred formate production is due to the lower energy barrier compared to the CO pathway, because of the favorable ^* O@Bi adsorption via the ^* OCHO intermediate. Significantly, the developed AZCBs operate efficiently and stably in a simulated Martian atmosphere, which is promising for future Human exploration of Mars, providing a potential solution for simultaneous energy generation and feedstock production in the challenging environment.

Existing technologies for chlorine (Cl ₂ ) synthesis are generally suffered from low productivity or high production cost. Guided by Bernoulli’s principle, here we report an efficient yet cost-effective electrochemical system for Cl ₂ electrosynthesis, which is composed of anodic chlorine evolution reaction (CER) connected to gas chamber by triple-phase gas diffusion layer. The key is to modulate gas diffusion layer by Bernoulli’s principle, wherein the pressure difference at triple-phase boundary drives oriented Cl ₂ migration directly into gas chamber, thus preventing the crossover of anodic/cathodic products. By further joining with a pH-tolerant catalyst, a standalone prototype device is built for high-rate Cl ₂ production, operating at the Faradaic efficiencies of 96.3% ~ 87.6% in the current density range of 0.1 ~ 1.14 A cm ⁻² , having superior Cl ₂ synthesis performance. Further technical-economic evaluations of our synthetic scheme demonstrate reduced Cl ₂ production cost, saving 6.75% (1.17 million dollar per year) as comparison to conventional chlor-alkali design. We expect these findings offer broader opportunities to develop industrially production processes for other chemical commodities.

A nano-island hybrid catalyst enables highly efficient and selective H ₂ O ₂ production via the 2e-ORR in neutral media using either O ₂ or ambient air.

The development of H ₂ O ₂ economy is hampered by the instability of liquid-state bulk H ₂ O ₂ solutions (2H ₂ O ₂ → 2H ₂ O + O ₂ ; ΔG° = −117 kJ mol ⁻¹ ). Comparatively, dispersing H ₂ O ₂ molecules in solid-state materials would offer good physical stability with less of handling, leak and exposure risks, but suffers from fabrication schemes irrelevant to commercial applications. Mediated by the concept of electronic structure blurring, here we elaborate one-step electrosynthesis of solid-state H ₂ O ₂ with productivity up to 0.943 mol L ⁻¹ h ⁻¹ . Notably, the as-fabricated solid-state H ₂ O ₂ features not only high H ₂ O ₂ gravimetric densities ( > 30 wt%) but also good stability for repeated H ₂ O ₂ loading/deloading over 100 cycles and shelf life over 160 days. Mechanism study underscores the electronic structure blurring formed at local catalytic environments that contributes to homogenizing charge distributions of H-O and O-O bondings (charge transfer of 0.67 and 0.22 e), and thereby inhibiting the break of these bonds inside H ₂ O ₂ molecules. The revelation that “stabilized H ₂ O ₂ ” can be manufactured under industrial conditions offers a path towards a sustainable H ₂ O ₂ production.

Replacing energy- and cost-intensive Solvay process with innovative manufacture protocol, such as operando-electrified synthesis, would provide a simpler, scale-flexible pathway to produce NaHCO₃. However, the commercialization of such technique is hampered by the bottleneck problem of small productivity, which is two orders of magnitude below traditional Solvay process. This might be attributed to the gap in conditions between embedded processes inside the system, especially low concentrations of local alkaine, which are generated relatively slowly from one-electron hydrogen chemistry, leading to a small CO₂–to–HCO₃ ⁻ conversion ratio. Guided by octet rule, here we embed eight-electron nitrogen chemistry into Solvay process, maximizing local alkalines generation for CO₂ conversion. By further breaking the stumbling scaling relationship with a liquid metal-derived catalyst, the system achieves productivity up to 3.63 mol L⁻¹ h⁻¹.