(Invited) novel Charged Interfaces for Catalysis and Energy Conversion

Abstract

Charged interfaces are ubiquitous in many research fields such as electrochemistry, catalysis, and energy chemistry, and are key places where physical and chemical processes occur. The charged interface structure can also be affected by external fields such as light, electricity, and force, and becomes the key to regulating chemical reactions. It is of great significance for the development of surface and interface science, electrochemistry, catalysis and energy science to deeply understand the physical and chemical reaction process and mechanism of various charged interface systems, and to clarify the interaction between interface structure and reacting species. It is extremely challenging to rationally design, construct, and characterize various novel charged interfaces, and then comprehensively and deeply study their physical and chemical processes and mechanisms. By constructing new charged interface structures such as solid/solid triboelectric interface, micro-droplet charged liquid/gas interface, and metal/two-dimensional material charged interface, we study the reaction process and mechanism of the charged interface and develop new energy conversion pathways. A series of innovative research results: Discovered a new mechanism of triboelectric power generation, expanding the new direction of charged interface structure in energy conversion; established and developed epitaxial growth modes of various interface structures; accurately characterized the electron transport of charged interface structure and surface charge distribution and other physical and chemical properties. We have developed new systems such as solid/dielectric/liquid charged interfaces based on electrodes/dielectric layers/electrolytes and liquid/gas charged interfaces based on microdroplets, and explored new applications in energy conversion and electrocatalysis. Applying a voltage to the electrode/dielectric layer/electrolyte interface can polarize the dielectric layer and adsorb ions in the electrolyte, forming a special "sandwich" electric double layer. Different from the solid/solid charged interface formed by triboelectrification or light excitation, this is a new solid/dielectric/liquid charged interface system based on electrostatic adsorption. Based on this interface system, a new nanoscale power generation device is designed, which can effectively convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, and has high output performance. A new liquid/gas charged interface based on micro-droplets was constructed by means of electrospray, a new strategy for confining the liquid/gas charged interface was proposed, and a high-performance electrolytic water catalyst was prepared. The physical and chemical mechanism of accelerated chemical reactions at the liquid/gas charged interface is revealed, and the desolvation effect and interface confinement effect are proved to be effective ways to construct defect-rich electrocatalysts.