Materials for energy and catalysis articles within Nature Chemistry

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  • News & Views |

    The design and prediction of network topology is challenging, even when the components' principle interactions are strong. Now, frameworks with relatively weak 'chiral recognition' between organic building blocks have been synthesized and rationalized in silico — an important development in the reticular synthesis of molecular crystals.

    • Caroline Mellot-Draznieks
    •  & Anthony K. Cheetham

  • In Your Element |

    Lars Öhrström relates the various roles played by rhodium in our daily lives, ranging from car components to drugs.

    • Lars Öhrström

  • News & Views |

    Nanoscopic templates functionalized with light-reactive chromophores could ultimately be used to store solar energy and later release it as heat. Now, it has been shown that packing the chromophores together increases both storage capacity and lifetime.

    • Nathan R. Neale

  • Article |

    Recharging Li–O2 batteries requires oxidation of the discharge product solid Li2O2. Now a redox-mediating molecule is shown to assist this process by transferring electron–holes between solid Li2O2 and the positive electrode in a non-aqueous Li–O2 cell. This allows the cell to be charged at rates that are otherwise impossible.

    • Yuhui Chen
    • , Stefan A. Freunberger
    •  & Peter G. Bruce

  • Article |

    Templated atomic layer deposition (ALD) is used to create oxide ‘nanocavities’ on the surface of catalyst particles. Subnanometre-nm films containing nanocavities act as sieves for the underlying catalyst, resulting in high selectivities for the smaller of two reactants in competitive oxidations or reductions.

    • Christian P. Canlas
    • , Junling Lu
    •  & Justin M. Notestein

  • Article |

    Porous solids are well suited to the capture of environmentally harmful gases, but further understanding of the solid–gas interactions involved is required. Combining dynamic and static characterization with modelling, researchers have now described how a metal–organic framework binds CO2 and SO2 selectively through hydroxyl groups — rather than amine ones as typically featured.

    • Sihai Yang
    • , Junliang Sun
    •  & Martin Schröder

  • News & Views |

    Characterizing electrochemical behaviour on the nanometre scale is fundamental to gaining complete insight into the working mechanisms of fuel cells. The application of a new scanning probe microscopy technique can now relate local surface structure to electrochemical activity at a resolution below 10 nm.

    • Johannes A. A. W. Elemans

  • Article |

    Dye-sensitized solar cells combining electrolytes based on the ferrocene/ferrocenium redox couple with a metal-free organic donor–acceptor sensitizer are reported to achieve a record 7.5% energy conversion efficiency, revealing the great potential of ferrocene-based electrolytes for future dye-sensitized solar cell applications.

    • Torben Daeneke
    • , Tae-Hyuk Kwon
    •  & Leone Spiccia

  • Research Highlights |

    The complex pore structures of mesoporous crystals can be elucidated by assessing the curvature of their boundary surface.

    • Neil Withers

  • Perspective |

    When it comes to porosity, the materials that spring to mind are typically one-, two- or three-dimensional extended networks. In this Perspective, discrete organic molecules are discussed that form porous solids — either owing to hollow molecular structures or simply through inefficient packing — with different properties from those of extended networks.

    • James R. Holst
    • , Abbie Trewin
    •  & Andrew I. Cooper

  • Article |

    The phosphoric acid fuel cell is limited by its slow rate of oxygen reduction at the cathode, but now an approach to the rational design of improved catalysts for this process has been developed. Molecular patterning of platinum surfaces with cyanide adsorbates is used to block the adsorption of spectator anions without hindering oxygen reduction, thus improving catalytic activity.

    • Dusan Strmcnik
    • , María Escudero-Escribano
    •  & Nenad M. Marković

  • Article |

    Although the triiodide/iodide redox couple works efficiently in dye-sensitized solar cells it restricts functionality by absorbing visible light. Now, a disulfide/thiolate redox couple that has negligible absorption in the visible spectral range is presented, which in conjunction with a sensitized heterojunction, displays an efficiency of 6.4% under standard illumination test conditions.

    • Mingkui Wang
    • , Nathalie Chamberland
    •  & Michael Grätzel

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