scholarly journals Tuning the Water Reduction Through Controlled Nanoconfinement Within an Organic Liquid Matrix

Author(s):  
Nicolas Dubouis ◽  
Alessandra Serva ◽  
Roxanne Berthin ◽  
guillaume jeanmairet ◽  
Benjamin Porcheron ◽  
...  

<p>The growing hydrogen-economy requires accelerating the hydrogen evolution reaction. The water dissociation step (Volmer step) has been proposed as a main kinetic limitation, but the mechanisms at play in the electrochemical double-layer are poorly understood. This is due to the ambivalent role of water: it acts both as a reactant and as a solvent. Here we propose to confine water inside an organic liquid matrix in order to isolate the sole role of water as a reactant. We observe the formation of aqueous-rich nanodomains, which size can be tuned by changing the supporting electrolyte, and found that the reactivity of the system significantly varies with its nanostructure. Depending on the conditions, it is dominated by either the strength of short-range cation-water interactions or the formation of long chains of water molecules. This understanding paves the way toward the development of more efficient and selective electrocatalysts for the water, CO<sub>2</sub>, O<sub>2</sub> or N<sub>2</sub> reduction.</p>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Dubouis ◽  
Alessandra Serva ◽  
Roxanne Berthin ◽  
guillaume jeanmairet ◽  
Benjamin Porcheron ◽  
...  

<p>The growing hydrogen-economy requires accelerating the hydrogen evolution reaction. The water dissociation step (Volmer step) has been proposed as a main kinetic limitation, but the mechanisms at play in the electrochemical double-layer are poorly understood. This is due to the ambivalent role of water: it acts both as a reactant and as a solvent. Here we propose to confine water inside an organic liquid matrix in order to isolate the sole role of water as a reactant. We observe the formation of aqueous-rich nanodomains, which size can be tuned by changing the supporting electrolyte, and found that the reactivity of the system significantly varies with its nanostructure. Depending on the conditions, it is dominated by either the strength of short-range cation-water interactions or the formation of long chains of water molecules. This understanding paves the way toward the development of more efficient and selective electrocatalysts for the water, CO<sub>2</sub>, O<sub>2</sub> or N<sub>2</sub> reduction.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Dubouis ◽  
Alessandra Serva ◽  
Roxanne Berthin ◽  
guillaume jeanmairet ◽  
Benjamin Porcheron ◽  
...  

<p>The growing hydrogen-economy requires accelerating the hydrogen evolution reaction. The water dissociation step (Volmer step) has been proposed as a main kinetic limitation, but the mechanisms at play in the electrochemical double-layer are poorly understood. This is due to the ambivalent role of water: it acts both as a reactant and as a solvent. Here we propose to confine water inside an organic liquid matrix in order to isolate the sole role of water as a reactant. We observe the formation of aqueous-rich nanodomains, which size can be tuned by changing the supporting electrolyte, and found that the reactivity of the system significantly varies with its nanostructure. Depending on the conditions, it is dominated by either the strength of short-range cation-water interactions or the formation of long chains of water molecules. This understanding paves the way toward the development of more efficient and selective electrocatalysts for the water, CO<sub>2</sub>, O<sub>2</sub> or N<sub>2</sub> reduction.</p>


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Reeves ◽  
Damien Dambournet ◽  
Christel Laberty-Robert ◽  
Rodolphe Vuilleumier ◽  
Mathieu Salanne

Chemical doping and other surface modifications have been used to engineer the bulk properties of materials, but their influence on the surface structure and consequently the surface chemistry are often unknown. Previous work has been successful in fluorinating anatase TiO<sub>2</sub> with charge balance achieved via the introduction of Ti vacancies rather than the reduction of Ti. Our work here investigates the interface between this fluorinated titanate with cationic vacancies and a<br>monolayer of water via density functional theory based molecular dynamics. We compute the projected density of states for only those atoms at the interface and for those states that fall within 1eV of the Fermi energy for various steps throughout the simulation, and we determine that the<br>variation in this representation of the density of states serves as a reasonable tool to anticipate where surfaces are most likely to be reactive. In particular, we conclude that water dissociation at the surface is the main mechanism that influences the anatase (001) surface whereas the change in<br>the density of states at the surface of the fluorinated structure is influenced primarily through the adsorption of water molecules at the surface.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Reeves ◽  
Damien Dambournet ◽  
Christel Laberty-Robert ◽  
Rodolphe Vuilleumier ◽  
Mathieu Salanne

Chemical doping and other surface modifications have been used to engineer the bulk properties of materials, but their influence on the surface structure and consequently the surface chemistry are often unknown. Previous work has been successful in fluorinating anatase TiO<sub>2</sub> with charge balance achieved via the introduction of Ti vacancies rather than the reduction of Ti. Our work here investigates the interface between this fluorinated titanate with cationic vacancies and a<br>monolayer of water via density functional theory based molecular dynamics. We compute the projected density of states for only those atoms at the interface and for those states that fall within 1eV of the Fermi energy for various steps throughout the simulation, and we determine that the<br>variation in this representation of the density of states serves as a reasonable tool to anticipate where surfaces are most likely to be reactive. In particular, we conclude that water dissociation at the surface is the main mechanism that influences the anatase (001) surface whereas the change in<br>the density of states at the surface of the fluorinated structure is influenced primarily through the adsorption of water molecules at the surface.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meneka Banik ◽  
Shaili Sett ◽  
Chirodeep Bakli ◽  
Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri ◽  
Suman Chakraborty ◽  
...  

AbstractSelf-assembly of Janus particles with spatial inhomogeneous properties is of fundamental importance in diverse areas of sciences and has been extensively observed as a favorably functionalized fluidic interface or in a dilute solution. Interestingly, the unique and non-trivial role of surface wettability on oriented self-assembly of Janus particles has remained largely unexplored. Here, the exclusive role of substrate wettability in directing the orientation of amphiphilic metal-polymer Bifacial spherical Janus particles, obtained by topo-selective metal deposition on colloidal Polymestyere (PS) particles, is explored by drop casting a dilute dispersion of the Janus colloids. While all particles orient with their polymeric (hydrophobic) and metallic (hydrophilic) sides facing upwards on hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates respectively, they exhibit random orientation on a neutral substrate. The substrate wettability guided orientation of the Janus particles is captured using molecular dynamic simulation, which highlights that the arrangement of water molecules and their local densities near the substrate guide the specific orientation. Finally, it is shown that by spin coating it becomes possible to create a hexagonal close-packed array of the Janus colloids with specific orientation on differential wettability substrates. The results reported here open up new possibilities of substrate-wettability driven functional coatings of Janus particles, which has hitherto remained unexplored.


Genetics ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
pp. 965-972 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudhir Kumar ◽  
Kristi A Balczarek ◽  
Zhi-Chun Lai

Abstract Effective intercellular communication is an important feature in the development of multicellular organisms. Secreted hedgehog (hh) protein is essential for both long- and short-range cellular signaling required for body pattern formation in animals. In a molecular evolutionary study, we find that the vertebrate homologs of the Drosophila hh gene arose by two gene duplications: the first gave rise to Desert hh, whereas the second produced the Indian and Sonic hh genes. Both duplications occurred before the emergence of vertebrates and probably before the evolution of chordates. The amino-terminal fragment of the hh precursor, crucial in long- and short-range intercellular communication, evolves two to four times slower than the carboxyl-terminal fragment in both Drosophila hh and its vertebrate homologues, suggesting conservation of mechanism of hh action in animals. A majority of amino acid substitutions in the amino- and carboxyl-terminal fragments are conservative, but the carboxyl-terminal domain has undergone extensive insertion-deletion events while maintaining its autocleavage protease activity. Our results point to similarity of evolutionary constraints among sites of Drosophila and vertebrate hh homologs and suggest some future directions for understanding the role of hh genes in the evolution of developmental complexity in animals.


Synlett ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kripa Subramanian ◽  
Subhash L. Yedage ◽  
Kashish Sethi ◽  
Bhalchandra M. Bhanage

An electrochemical method for the synthesis of phenanthridinones via constant potential electrolysis (CPE) mediated by <i>n</i>-Bu<sub>4</sub>NI (TBAI) has been reported. The protocol is metal and oxidant free and proceeds with 100% current efficiency. Here TBAI plays the dual role of the redox catalyst as well as supporting electrolyte. The intramolecular C-H activation proceeds under mild reaction conditions and short reaction time via electrochemically generated amidyl radicals. The reaction has been scaled up to gram level showing its practicability and the synthetic utility and applicability of the protocol has been demonstrated by the direct one-step synthesis of the bioactive compound Phenaglaydon.


Author(s):  
Agnieszka Nosal-Wiercińska ◽  
Marlena Martyna ◽  
Sławomira Skrzypek ◽  
Anna Szabelska ◽  
Małgorzata Wiśniewska

AbstractThe paper discusses the electroreduction of Bi(III) ions in the aspect of expanding the “cap-pair” effect.The “cap-pair” rule is associated with the acceleration of the electrode’s processes by organic substances. The interpretation of the “cap-pair” effect mechanism was expanded to include the effect of supporting electrolyte concentration on the acceleration process and the type of electrochemical active as well as used protonated organic substances. It has also been shown that the phenomena occurring at the electrode/solution interface can influence a change in the dynamics of the electrode’s process according to the “cap-pair” rule.


Author(s):  
Christos P.E. Varsamis ◽  
Nikos Makris ◽  
Christina Valvi ◽  
E. I. Kamitsos

Bismuth-containing borate glasses, xBi2O3-(1-x)B2O3, were synthesized in the broad composition range 0.20≤x≤0.80 by melting in Pt crucibles and splat-quenching between two metal blocks. Infrared reflectance spectra, measured in the range...


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