Pothole-rich Ultrathin WO3 Nanosheets that Trigger N≡N Bond Activation of Nitrogen for Direct Nitrate Photosynthesis

Surface-defect-engineered photocatalyst for nitrogen fixation into value-added chemical feedstocks

Surface-defect-engineered photocatalyst for nitrogen fixation.

On-chip electrocatalytic microdevice: an emerging platform for expanding the insight into electrochemical processes

This comprehensive summary of on-chip electrocatalytic microdevices will expand the insight into electrochemical processes, ranging from dynamic exploration to performance optimization.

Surface engineered 2D materials for photocatalysis

2D materials, with thin thickness, large lateral size and abundant exposed surface atoms with dominant facets, provide ideal platforms for carrying out surface engineering at the atomic level for optimizing their photocatalytic performance.

Carbonate doped Bi2MoO6 hierarchical nanostructure with enhanced transformation of active radicals for efficient photocatalytic removal of NO

Doping heteroatoms in photocatalyst is an effective strategy to signally enhance the photocatalytic activity. Herein, we have favorably fabricated the carbonate doped Bi₂MoO₆ via a facile one-pot solvothermal method, which was verified by structure and constituent characterization analysis. In addition, the NO removal efficiency of carbonate-intercalated Bi₂MoO₆ is ~34%, far-exceeding that of the pure Bi₂MoO₆ (~13%), whilst exhibits a good stability and durability, owing to that the dopants could modulate the electron states of the Bi₂MoO₆, thus stimulating charge separation and migration, incenting transformation of reactive oxygen species and facilitating reactants activation, which are synthetically investigated by experimental characterization coupled with DFT calculation. Significantly, the in situ DRIFTS measurement was employed to dynamic monitor the NO oxidation process and clarify the photocatalytic mechanism under visible light irradiation. This work provides an efficient strategy to design photocatalysts with tunable motivating charge conversion and reactants activation towards NO photooxidation.

Electrochemical Nitrogen Reduction Reaction Performance of Single-Boron Catalysts Tuned by MXene Substrates

A boron (B) center, which has an electronic structure mimicking the filled and empty d orbitals in transition metals, can effectively activate the triple bond in N₂ so as to catalyze the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). Here, by means of density functional theory, we have systematically investigated the catalytic performance of a single B atom decorated on two-dimensional transition metal carbides (MXenes). The B-doped Mo₂CO₂ and W₂CO₂ MXenes exhibit outstanding catalytic activity and selectivity with limiting potentials of -0.20 and -0.24 V, respectively. Importantly, we have found that, although a high tendency of B-to-adsorbate electron donation can promote the hydrogenation of *N₂ to *N₂H, it would also severely hamper the *NH₂ to *NH₃ conversion due to the strong B-N bonding. Such an electron-donation effect can be reasonably tuned by the transition metal in the MXene substrate, which enables us to achieve optimized catalytic performance with a certain moderate degree of electron donation.

Reduced State of the Graphene Oxide@Polyoxometalate Nanocatalyst Achieving High-Efficiency Nitrogen Fixation under Light Driving Conditions

The nitrogen (N₂) reduction to generate ammonia (NH₃) is a prerequisite for inputting fixed nitrogen (N) into a global biogeochemical cycle. Developing highly efficient photocatalysts for N₂ fixation under mild conditions is still a challenge. Herein, we first report three kinds of reduction states of graphene oxide (GO)@polyoxometalate (POM) composite nanomaterials, which have outstanding photocatalytic N₂ fixation activities in pure water without any other electronic sacrificial agents and cocatalysts at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. A lot of experiments show that the remarkable photocatalytic N₂ fixation performance of these three nanocatalysts is due to three factors that doping the reduced POMs (also called heteropoly blues) into the reduce GO (rGO) reduces the aggregation state of rGO (from 5 to 2 nm), resulting in rGO exposing many active sites to enhance the N₂ adsorption amount, these three nanocatalysts possess a wide absorption spectrum and strong reducibility, which facilitate absorb light energy exciting abundant photoelectrons to activate N₂, and rGO can effectively suppress the electrons recombination and rapidly transfer electrons to the absorbed N₂ to accelerate NH₃ production. Among them, r-GO@H₅[PMo₁₀V₂O₄₀] (PMo₁₀V₂) exhibits the highest NH₃ generation efficiency of 130.3 μmol L^-1 h^-1, which is improved by 65.9 and 97.3% compared to the reduced PMo₁₀V₂ (rPMo₁₀V₂) and PMo₁₀V₂. Introduction of POMs provides a new perspective in the design of high-performance photocatalytic N₂ fixation nanomaterials.

Growth of W18O49/WOx/W dendritic nanostructures by one-step thermal evaporation and their high-performance photocatalytic activities in methyl orange degradation

A W₁₈O₄₉/WO_x/W dendritic nanostructure was fabricated via self-assembly and acted as an integrated system in the photocatalytic process of MO degradation.