Surface chemistry and catalysis of uniform Cu₂O nanocrystals with well-defined shapes

ABSTRACT

Uniform nanocrystals with well-defined structures are suitable model catalysts for fundamental studies of complex heterogeneous catalysis, whose results can extend the surface structure-surface chemistry relation acquired by traditional single crystal model catalysts to the surface structure-surface chemistry-catalysis relation [1,2]. In this seminar, I will present our work on using uniform Cu₂O cubes enclosed with the {100} facets, octahedral enclosed with the {111} facets and rhombic dodecahedra enclosed with the {110} facets to explore structure-activity relation and mechanisms of Cu₂O-catalyzed propylene epoxidation with O₂ reaction [3-6]. Acquired results unveil rich surface structure- and reaction temperature-dependent surface reaction networks that lead to the observed shape- and size-dependent catalytic performance of various Cu₂O nanocrystals.

References

[1] W. Huang, Acc. Chem. Res. 49 (2016) 520-527.

[2] S. Chen, F. Xiong, W. Huang, Surf. Sci. Rep. 74 (2019) 100471.

[3] Q. Hua, T. Cao. X.-K. Gu et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53 (2014) 4856-4861.

[4] Z. Zhang, H. Wu, Z. Yu et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 58 (2019) 4276-4280.

[5] W. Xiong, X.-K. Gu, Z. Zhang et al., Nat. Commun. 12 (2021) 5921.

[6] Jialin Li et al., unpublished results.

BIO

Prof. Dr. Weixin Huang is a Changjiang Chair Professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) appointed by Ministry of Education of China. He received the Bachelor of Science degree from USTC in 1996 and the Ph.D. degree from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in 2001. He then worked at the University of Texas at Austin as a postdoctoral fellow and at the Fritz Haber Institute as a Humboldt fellow. He has been a full professor at USTC since December 2004. His research interest is surface chemistry and catalysis of solid catalysts with well-defined structures ranging from single crystals to nanocrystals. He received the Humboldt research fellowship of the AvH Foundation, the Chinese catalysis youth award of the Chinese Catalysis Society, and the Humboldt research award of the AvH Foundation. He was also funded by the distinguished youth science fund of the National Science Foundation of China. He is an editor of Applied Surface Science and Surface Science and Technology, and a member of the editorial boards of Catalysis Letters, Topics in Catalysis, Science China Chemistry, and The Journal of Physical Chemistry A/B/C.