Ag-enhanced Catalytic Performance of Ordered Mesoporous Fe–N-Graphitic Carbons for Oxygen Electroreduction

Recent progress in the design of photocatalytic H2O2 synthesis system

Photocatalytic synthesis of hydrogen peroxide under mild reaction conditions is a promising technology. This article will review the recent research progress in the design of photocatalytic H₂O₂ synthesis systems. A comprehensive discussion of the strategies that could solve two essential issues related to H₂O₂ synthesis. That is, how to improve the reaction kinetics of H₂O₂ formation via 2e^- oxygen reduction reaction and inhibit the H₂O₂ decomposition through a variety of surface functionalization methods. The photocatalyst design and the reaction mechanism will be especially stressed in this work which will be concluded with an outlook to show the possible ways for synthesizing high-concentration H₂O₂ solution in the future.

A density functional theory study of the oxygen reduction reaction on the (111) and (100) surfaces of cobalt(II) oxide

Density functional theory calculations were employed to investigate the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction on the (111) and (100) surfaces of cobalt(II) oxide. Different mechanisms were applied to evaluate the oxygen reduction reaction performance of cobalt(II) oxide structures in terms of the Gibbs free energy and density of states. A variety of intermediate structures based on associative and dissociative mechanisms were constructed and optimized. As a result, we estimated the catalytic activity by calculating the free energy of the intermediates and constructing free energy diagrams, which suggested that the oxygen reduction reaction Gibbs free energy on cobalt(II) oxide (111) and (100) surfaces based on the associative mechanism is smaller than that based on the dissociative mechanism, demonstrating that the associative mechanism should be more likely to be the oxygen reduction reaction pathway. Moreover, the theoretical oxygen reduction reaction activity on the cobalt(II) oxide (111) surface was found to be higher than that on the cobalt(II) oxide (100) surface. These results shed light on the rational design of high-performance cobalt(II) oxide oxygen reduction reaction catalysts.