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Materials
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Morphological, Structural and Chemical Investigation of Advanced Catalysts
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Morphological, Structural and Chemical Investigation of Advanced Catalysts

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 May 2023) | Viewed by 3941

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Katarzyna Bejtka

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Guest Editor
Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: nanostructured materials; electrocatalysis; CO2 valorization; morphological, structural and chemical properties of catalysts; electron microscopy; in-situ and in-operando TEM; Raman spectroscopy; in-operando Raman
Dr. Angelica Chiodoni

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Center for Sustainable Future Technologies (CSFT)@Polito, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Environment Park, Building B2 Via Livorno 60, 10144 Torino, Italy
Interests: material science applied to renewable energies; CO2 valorization; sustainability; nanostructured materials; morphological and structural properties of materials and their correlation with their functional and catalytic properties; scanning and transmission electron microscopies; in situ and operando transmission electron microscopy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The negative effects of greenhouse gases over the planet’s climate have pushed the scientific community to find new pathways to promote a transition from an energy scenario based on fossil fuels, to another based on renewable energy sources. Considering carbon dioxide as a valuable raw material to obtain added-value products (i.e., fuels and chemicals) through its photo/electrochemical reduction (CO2RR) represents, among others, one of the main strategies to mitigate its effects.

The availability of highly selective, stable, efficient, environmentally friendly, and inexpensive photo/electrocatalysts is nowadays increasing, however, the lack of understanding their properties and functioning mechanisms does not often allow further improvements, e.g., to bring them to an industrial level of development and commercialization.

At present, the increase of efficiency and production rates are imperative demands from the industrial point of view. In order to fulfill the industry requirements, researchers are expected to give insights into morphological, structural and chemical properties of catalysts, as this is of fundamental importance to understand the behavior of electrochemical systems. Good understanding of these properties prior, after, and possibly also under reaction conditions can lead to an optimized design of the catalysts and help bring them to the industrialization level.

The aim of this Special Issue is therefore to merge the research communities investigating morphological, structural and chemical properties of catalysts with different ex situ and in-operando techniques, to share recent results, experimental methods, and future perspectives. Contributions on improved catalysts based on understanding their physical/chemical properties are particularly encouraged.

It is our pleasure to invite you to submit papers and reviews exploring the fascinating field of catalyst preparation, characterization and optimization.

Dr. Katarzyna Bejtka
Dr. Angelica Chiodoni
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • electrocatalysts, photocatalysts and thermocatalysts
  • CO2 reduction and conversion
  • nano structures
  • 2D materials
  • high surface area nanostructures
  • properties
  • characterization
  • active sites
  • theoretical concepts
  • application

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 3923 KiB  
Article
Cu2O/SnO2 Heterostructures: Role of the Synthesis Procedure on PEC CO2 Conversion
by Maddalena Zoli, Hilmar Guzmán, Adriano Sacco, Nunzio Russo and Simelys Hernández
Materials 2023, 16(13), 4497; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma16134497 - 21 Jun 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1527
Abstract
Addressing the urgent need to mitigate increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and combat global warming, the development of earth-abundant catalysts for selective photo-electrochemical CO2 conversion is a central and pressing challenge. Toward this purpose, two synthetic strategies for obtaining [...] Read more.
Addressing the urgent need to mitigate increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and combat global warming, the development of earth-abundant catalysts for selective photo-electrochemical CO2 conversion is a central and pressing challenge. Toward this purpose, two synthetic strategies for obtaining a Cu2O–SnO2 catalyst, namely co-precipitation and core–shell methods, were compared. The morphology and band gap energy of the synthesized materials were strongly different. The photoactivity of the core–shell catalyst was improved by 30% compared to the co-precipitation one, while its selectivity was shifted towards C1 products such as CO and formate. The stability of both catalysts was revealed by an easy and fast EIS analysis, indicating how the effective presence of a SnO2 shell could prevent the modification of the crystalline phase of the catalyst during PEC tests. Finally, directing the selectivity depending on the synthesis method used to produce the final Cu2O–SnO2 catalyst could possibly be implemented in syngas and formate transformation processes, such as hydroformylation or the Fischer–Tropsch process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Morphological, Structural and Chemical Investigation of Advanced Catalysts)
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12 pages, 1455 KiB  
Article
An Instantaneous Recombination Rate Method for the Analysis of Interband Recombination Processes in ZnO Crystals
by Luigi Santamaria, Pasqualino Maddalena and Stefano Lettieri
Materials 2022, 15(4), 1515; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma15041515 - 17 Feb 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1673
Abstract
Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) analysis is often performed to assess the qualitative features of semiconductor crystals using predetermined functions (e.g., double- or multi-exponentials) to fit the decays of PL intensity. However, in many cases—including the notable case of interband PL in direct gap semiconductors—this [...] Read more.
Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) analysis is often performed to assess the qualitative features of semiconductor crystals using predetermined functions (e.g., double- or multi-exponentials) to fit the decays of PL intensity. However, in many cases—including the notable case of interband PL in direct gap semiconductors—this approach just provides phenomenological parameters and not fundamental physical quantities. In the present work, we highlight that within a properly chosen range of laser excitation, the TRPL of zinc oxide (ZnO) bulk crystals can be described with excellent precision with second-order kinetics for the total recombination rate. We show that this allows us to define an original method for data analysis, based on evaluating the “instantaneous” recombination rate that drives the initial slope of the decay curves, acquired as a function of the excitation laser fluence. The method is used to fit experimental data, determining useful information on fundamental quantities that appear in the second-order recombination rate, namely the PL (unimolecular) lifetime, the bimolecular recombination coefficient, the non-radiative lifetime and the equilibrium free-carrier concentration. Results reasonably close to those typically obtained in direct gap semiconductors are extracted. The method may represent a useful tool for gaining insight into the recombination processes of a charge carrier in ZnO, and for obtaining quantitative information on ZnO excitonic dynamics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Morphological, Structural and Chemical Investigation of Advanced Catalysts)
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