Shunji_xie

Nature Materials 15, 99 (2016). doi:10.1038/nmat4451

Authors: Andrew G. Scheuermann, John P. Lawrence, Kyle W. Kemp, T. Ito, Adrian Walsh, Christopher E. D. Chidsey, Paul K. Hurley & Paul C. McIntyre

Nature Materials 15, 48 (2016). doi:10.1038/nmat4465

Authors: Hong Li, Charlie Tsai, Ai Leen Koh, Lili Cai, Alex W. Contryman, Alex H. Fragapane, Jiheng Zhao, Hyun Soon Han, Hari C. Manoharan, Frank Abild-Pedersen, Jens K. Nørskov & Xiaolin Zheng

As a promising non-precious catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER; refs ,,,,), molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) is known to contain active edge sites and an inert basal plane. Activating the MoS2 basal plane could further enhance its HER activity but is not often a strategy for doing so. Herein, we report the first activation and optimization of the basal plane of monolayer 2H-MoS2 for HER by introducing sulphur (S) vacancies and strain. Our theoretical and experimental results show that the S-vacancies are new catalytic sites in the basal plane, where gap states around the Fermi level allow hydrogen to bind directly to exposed Mo atoms. The hydrogen adsorption free energy (ΔGH) can be further manipulated by straining the surface with S-vacancies, which fine-tunes the catalytic activity. Proper combinations of S-vacancy and strain yield the optimal ΔGH = 0 eV, which allows us to achieve the highest intrinsic HER activity among molybdenum-sulphide-based catalysts.

Nature Materials. doi:10.1038/nmat4511

Authors: Jing Gu, Yong Yan, James L. Young, K. Xerxes Steirer, Nathan R. Neale & John A. Turner

Capturing CO2 from humid flue gases and atmosphere with porous materials remains costly because prior dehydration of the gases is required. A large number of microporous materials with physical adsorption capacity have been developed as CO2-capturing materials. However, most of them suffer from CO2 sorption capacity reduction or structure decomposition that is caused by co-adsorbed H2O when exposed to humid flue gases and atmosphere. We report a highly stable microporous coppersilicate. It has H2O-specific and CO2-specific adsorption sites but does not have H2O/CO2-sharing sites. Therefore, it readily adsorbs both H2O and CO2 from the humid flue gases and atmosphere, but the adsorbing H2O does not interfere with the adsorption of CO2. It is also highly stable after adsorption of H2O and CO2 because it was synthesized hydrothermally. Authors: Shuvo Jit Datta, Chutharat Khumnoon, Zhen Hao Lee, Won Kyung Moon, Son Docao, Thanh Huu Nguyen, In Chul Hwang, Dohyun Moon, Peter Oleynikov, Osamu Terasaki, Kyung Byung Yoon

Solar photoconversion in semiconductors is driven by charge separation at the interface of the semiconductor and contacting layers. Here we demonstrate that time-resolved photoinduced reflectance from a semiconductor captures interfacial carrier dynamics. We applied this transient photoreflectance method to study charge transfer at p-type gallium-indium phosphide (p-GaInP2) interfaces critically important to solar-driven water splitting. We monitored the formation and decay of transient electric fields that form upon photoexcitation within bare p-GaInP2, p-GaInP2/platinum (Pt), and p-GaInP2/amorphous titania (TiO2) interfaces. The data show that a field at both the p-GaInP2/Pt and p-GaInP2/TiO2 interfaces drives charge separation. Additionally, the charge recombination rate at the p-GaInP2/TiO2 interface is greatly reduced owing to its p-n nature, compared with the Schottky nature of the p-GaInP2/Pt interface. Authors: Ye Yang, Jing Gu, James L. Young, Elisa M. Miller, John A. Turner, Nathan R. Neale, Matthew C. Beard

How much translational energy atoms and molecules lose in collisions at surfaces determines whether they adsorb or scatter. The fact that hydrogen (H) atoms stick to metal surfaces poses a basic question. Momentum and energy conservation demands that the light H atom cannot efficiently transfer its energy to the heavier atoms of the solid in a binary collision. How then do H atoms efficiently stick to metal surfaces? We show through experiments that H-atom collisions at an insulating surface (an adsorbed xenon layer on a gold single-crystal surface) are indeed nearly elastic, following the predictions of energy and momentum conservation. In contrast, H-atom collisions with the bare gold surface exhibit a large loss of translational energy that can be reproduced by an atomic-level simulation describing electron-hole pair excitation. Authors: Oliver Bünermann, Hongyan Jiang, Yvonne Dorenkamp, Alexander Kandratsenka, Svenja M. Janke, Daniel J. Auerbach, Alec M. Wodtke

Nature Materials 14, 1150 (2015). doi:10.1038/nmat4408

Authors: James C. Hill, Alan T. Landers & Jay A. Switzer

Nature Materials 14, 1245 (2015). doi:10.1038/nmat4410

Authors: Miguel Cabán-Acevedo, Michael L. Stone, J. R. Schmidt, Joseph G. Thomas, Qi Ding, Hung-Chih Chang, Meng-Lin Tsai, Jr-Hau He & Song Jin

Nature Chemistry. doi:10.1038/nchem.2365

Authors: Tobias C. B. Harlang, Yizhu Liu, Olga Gordivska, Lisa A. Fredin, Carlito S. Ponseca, Ping Huang, Pavel Chábera, Kasper S. Kjaer, Helena Mateos, Jens Uhlig, Reiner Lomoth, Reine Wallenberg, Stenbjörn Styring, Petter Persson, Villy Sundström & Kenneth Wärnmark

Using iron instead of the scarce ruthenium in light-harvesting complexes is challenging because iron complexes generally have short-lived excited states. Now an iron complex has been developed that has a long-lived excited state, which can lead to photo-induced electron injection into nanoporous TiO2 with a yield of 92%.

Nature Materials 14, 1192 (2015). doi:10.1038/nmat4494

Authors: Idan Hod, Omar K. Farha & Joseph T. Hupp

Self-assembling covalent organic frameworks can boost electrode performance for the catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide.

Nature Materials. doi:10.1038/nmat4408

Authors: James C. Hill, Alan T. Landers & Jay A. Switzer

Abstract