EnergyChem最新文献

The development of clean sustainable energy conversion technologies to deal with energy shortage and environmental pollution has aroused a widespread concern. To improve the rate and selectivity of the pivotal chemical reactions involved in these technologies, high-performance electrocatalysts are crucial. Alloys have sparked research hotspot in electrocatalysis because of their higher catalytic activity, stability, and selectivity than their single-metal counterparts. In this review, the design strategies for alloy electrocatalysts are firstly introduced with a focus on how to achieve optimal performance by composition regulation, size optimization and morphology control. Subsequently, we offer a comprehensive overview of the electrocatalytic applications of binary, ternary, quaternary, and high-entropy alloys to different types of electrochemical energy conversion processes, including the hydrogen evolution, oxygen evolution, oxygen reduction, CO₂ reduction, formic acid oxidation, methanol oxidation, and ethanol oxidation reactions. Finally, the challenges and future outlook are presented for the rational design of advanced alloy electrocatalysts.

Electrocatalytic water splitting for green hydrogen generation is of great significance for renewable energy conversion and storage. The development of efficient electrocatalysts to reduce the energy barriers of the two half-reactions of hydrogen evolution (HER) and oxygen evolution (OER) is the key to realize the high-efficiency industrialization of electrochemical water splitting. With the continuous investment of research efforts, diverse transition metal-based catalysts have flourished, and their dynamic structural reconstruction during electrocatalytic OER and HER has also been pushed into a research upsurge. Since most transition metal compounds are thermodynamically unstable under electrochemical OER or HER conditions, they tend to undergo dynamic structural evolution to reach a relatively stable state, whereby the in situ reconstructed surface as the real reactivity species induces the changes in catalytic activity, which brings challenges to understanding the real catalytic mechanism and also motivates the development of surface reconstruction as a novel strategy to design superior heterostructure catalysts. At present, how to rationally utilize surface reconstruction to achieve breakthroughs in catalytic performance has become a critical focus area. This review summarizes the recent progress of surface reconstruction-derived heterostructures for electrocatalytic OER and HER, highlighting the fundamental understanding of surface reconstruction behaviors, the correlation between the intrinsic structure and dynamic reconstruction process of pristine catalysts, and some possible catalytic mechanisms that responsible for the enhanced catalytic activity. Moreover, several instructive design strategies of catalysts for modulating structural reconstruction to obtain optimized activity including heteroatom doping/substitution, anion/cation induction, structural defects, and heterostructure construction, are then introduced. Finally, we put forward the challenges and outlooks for surface reconstruction engineering, providing new insights and directions for future research development.

Considering the wide abundance and low cost of sodium resources and their similar electrochemistry to the well-established lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have been regarded as potential alternatives to LIBs. Iron-based materials have attracted considerable attention as promising electrode materials for SIBs due to their high theoretical capacitance, natural abundance, and low cost. However, their sluggish reaction kinetics, accompanied with severe volume change during cycling sodiation/desodiation process and their unsatisfied electric conductivity, always leads to inferior long-term cycling stability and rate performance. To resolve these issues, significant and effective efforts have been made to improve their electrochemical performance, and great processes have been achieved. In this review, some recent progress on the development and design of nanostructured iron-based anodes, including oxides, chalcogenides, phosphides, nitrides, alloys, etc., are summarized, mainly focusing on the relationship between their structural features and sodium storage performance to understand the mechanisms behind the improvement of their sodium storage performance. In addition, the current challenges and future directions upon improving iron-based anodes for SIBs are briefly reviewed. These iron-based electrode materials are expected to be competitive and attractive electrodes for next-generation energy storage devices.

Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) with high energy density have been drawn the tremendous interests in academia as well as industry. Nevertheless, sluggish redox kinetics of sulfur species has been challenging for high performance LSBs. The design of catalytic materials, being a promising strategy for kinetics modulation by controlling polysulfides conversion, has been mainly focused. To improve battery performance of LSBs, in this review, the effect of functional catalysts with different morphologies, crystal configurations, energy band behaviors, coordination environments on kinetics modulation was summarized. Furthermore, some optimized bidirectional catalysts were mainly addressed to deeply understand appropriate adsorption capacity, prominent mass transfer capability, outstanding catalytic activity/selectivity. In addition, a great quantity of cutting-edge strategies, such as structure engineering, defect, interface engineering and atomic bonding for metal compounds as well as metal-based single atom catalysts, were proposed to uncover the synthesis behaviors of optimum bidirectional catalysts. Eventually, various advanced characterization methods were provided to evaluate catalysis. It is believed that this review will provide a novel insight for the design of bidirectional catalysts with high activity, high catalytic selectivity, long lifespan toward high-performance LSBs.

With the excessive consumption and dependence on non-renewable energy, it is urgent to seek sustainable clean energy. Using solar energy to yield target product is one of the main ways to solve environmental pollution and produce renewable resources. Conjugated porous polymers (Covalent organic frameworks, COFs. Conjugated microporous polymers, CMPs) could effectively convert solar energy into products due to their pre-designable structures and tailor-made functions. In this review, we overview the development of fundamental catalytic mechanisms, structural design principles, and summary of the advantages and progress of semi-conductive COFs/CMPs based on diverse building blocks (porphyryl-, pyrenyl-, carbazolyl-, triazinyl-, thienyl/thiazolyl-, β-ketoenamine-, conjugated alkenyl/alkynyl-, fluorenyl-), and outline the advances in COFs/CMPs as a universal platform for photocatalysts in a wide range of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, carbon dioxide reduction, degradation of pollutions, nitrogen fixation, and organic conversion. We wish that this review will provide a comprehensive overview of photocatalysis, and boost the progress of conjugated porous polymers.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) show great promise for electrochemical energy storage applications due to their high surface area, tunable porosity, ordered crystal structure, and facile tolerability. However, some MOFs with high electrochemical performance are usually unstable in aqueous solutions, which limits their development in aqueous electrochemical energy storage systems, which are cheaper, safer, and more ionically conductive than those operating in conventional organic electrolytes. Numerous efforts have been made to construct stable MOFs or control MOF derivation processes induced by chemical or thermal forces to optimize their properties and performance. Therefore, a review summarizing the MOFs applied in aqueous electrochemical energy storage devices would be useful. In this review, the chemical stability and thermal stability of MOFs under aqueous conditions are discussed. The evolution processes of MOFs when they exceed their stability are summarized. Furthermore, the recent fast-growing literature on MOF-based aqueous ion batteries and supercapacitors is comprehensively reviewed, and guidelines for designing high-performance aqueous electrochemical devices are provided. The current challenges and opportunities for applying MOFs in aqueous electrochemical energy-storage devices are provided. We hope this review will promote the development of MOFs in aqueous electrochemical devices by exploiting the advantages and remedying the disadvantages of MOFs.

With the advantages of high safety and environmental friendliness, aqueous batteries have shown beneficial application scenarios in the field of large-scale energy storage. Compared to the conventional metal ions storage processes, non-metal carriers like protons are less concerned about due to the unconventional storage mechanism, which could be regarded as a promising green battery technology with high power density and adequate lifespan. Owing to the unique working mechanism and properties, aqueous proton batteries (APBs) can deliver excellent low-temperature electrochemical performance with cost effectiveness, further allowing full play to the best ability of aqueous storage technique. However, the issue on lack of advanced electrode materials still hinders the research progress on commercial applications of APBs. In this review, we present a comprehensive summary on the development of APBs, from the perspective of electrode materials, electrolytes, and current collectors, including cross-sectional host and corresponding design principles and energy storage mechanism. This review aims to clarify the status quo and emerging challenges for further development of APBs devices.

Facet-engineering and interface design can optimize physicochemical properties of micro/nanomaterials at atomic level making them promising applications in a variety of fields such as catalysis, gas sorption/separation and sensing, especially in photocatalysis. In this review, we summarize the recent progress of photocatalytic reactions including water splitting, carbon dioxide (CO₂) reduction, degradation and so on from the aspect of facet-engineering. The influences of low-index facets, high-index facets and mixed facets with surface heterojunction on the photocatalytic performance are highlighted, and the challenges and opportunities of the facet-engineering for photocatalysis are discussed. It is expected that this review can provide guidance for future development of facet-engineering for efficiently photocatalytic applications.

The continuous increase of greenhouse gases (CO₂ or CH₄) in the atmosphere has been imposing an imminent threat for global climate change and environmental hazards. Electrochemical one-carbon (C1) molecule conversion to value-added fuels and chemicals provides a green and efficient approach to mitigate fossil energy shortages and storing supernumerary renewable electricity in fuels, thereby reducing the global carbon footprint. Benefited from the substantial cost reduction of clean electricity, the room-temperature electrolysis has been emerging as a competitive strategy for C1 molecule unitization. In this review, we mainly focus on the state-of-the-art technologies involving electrocatalysts and devices, and introduce the representative works about room-temperature C1 molecule electrolysis in recent years, which will serve as a timely reference for catalyst design and device fabrication for efficient and practical conversion of C1 molecules. The challenges and perspectives are also discussed to suggest possible research directions toward fuel production from C1 molecules by room-temperature electrolysis in the future.

Metal anodes (Li, Na, K, Zn, Mg, Ca, Fe, Al, Mn, etc.) based on a plating/stripping electrochemical mechanism have attracted great attention in rechargeable batteries because of their low electrochemical potential, high theoretical specific capacity, and superior electronic conductivity. Metal anodes exhibit large potential in constructing high-energy-density rechargeable batteries. However, challenges such as high chemical reactivity, large volume changes, unstable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), and uneven electrochemical deposition result in a serious of interfacial issues on metal anodes, including corrosion, side reaction, structural instability, and formation of dendrites. In the past several years, a lot of modification strategies based on interfacial engineering have been proposed to improve the interfacial stability of metal anodes. The interfacial engineering on metal anodes is mainly achieved by solid-liquid reaction, solid-solid reaction, solid-gas reaction, and physical decoration. In this review, we summary and analyze these interfacial engineering strategies on metal anodes in detail. Meanwhile, some perspectives and outlooks are put forward. This review can provide some enlightenment for related researchers and promote the development of metal anodes in rechargeable batteries.