Surface chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Enhancing the kinetics and selectivity of CO2/CO electroreduction towards valuable multi-carbon products poses a scientific challenge and is imperative for practical applicability. Here the authors report that modifying copper catalysts with surface thiol ligands significantly improves acetate selectivity.

    • Erfan Shirzadi
    • , Qiu Jin
    •  & Edward H. Sargent

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The strong ionic bond in salt is broken by electrostatic interactions with water, but direct observation at the level of a single ion is challenging. Here, the authors have visualized the preferential dissolution of an anion by manipulating a single water molecule.

    • Huijun Han
    • , Yunjae Park
    •  & Hyung-Joon Shin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules arranged in close proximity to a surface form molecular layers, exhibiting distinct properties. However, the creation of these layers is challenging. Here, the authors present a technique for generating molecular layers through crystallization induced by gas blowing onto a surface.

    • Jincheng Tong
    • , Nathan de Bruyn
    •  & Cinzia Casiraghi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    On-surface synthesis relies on carefully designed molecular precursors that are thermally activated to afford desired, covalently coupled architectures. Here, the authors study the intramolecular reactions of vinyl groups in a poly-para-phenylene-based model system and provide a comprehensive description of the reaction steps taking place on the Au(111) surface under ultrahigh vacuum conditions.

    • Marco Di Giovannantonio
    • , Zijie Qiu
    •  & Roman Fasel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene oxide is in demand for various applications - however, this is complicated by changing physicochemical properties over time. Here, the authors show the intrinsic, metastable, and transient states of graphene oxide colloids upon ripening.

    • Hayato Otsuka
    • , Koki Urita
    •  & Katsumi Kaneko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The efficiency of upconversion electroluminescence remains very low for single-molecule emitters. Here, the authors report over one order of magnitude improvement in the emission efficiency via engineering energy-level alignments for triplet relayed upconversion involving only carrier injection.

    • Yang Luo
    • , Fan-Fang Kong
    •  & Zhen-Chao Dong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In-situ cryo-electron microscopy in thin amorphous ice films and ice-dynamics simulations reveal polymorph-dependent growth kinetics of nanoscale ice crystals. Hetero-crystalline ice exhibits anisotropic growth: fast-growing facets are associated with low-density interfaces, driving tetrahedral ordering of interfacial H2O molecules and accelerating ice growth.

    • Minyoung Lee
    • , Sang Yup Lee
    •  & Dong June Ahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scanning tunnelling microscopy-based H desorption lithography is used for atomic-scale patterning of quantum devices in Si, but its time-consuming nature hinders scalability. Here the authors report H desorption from Si(001):H surface using extreme-UV light and explore implications for patterning.

    • Procopios Constantinou
    • , Taylor J. Z. Stock
    •  & Steven R. Schofield

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional sequence-controlled copolymerization often suffers from strict requirements on reaction kinetics of comonomer pairs and tedious synthetic processes. Here, the authors demonstrate a sequence-controlled alternating copolymerization with molecular precision on a Ag(111) surface under thermodynamic control of the polymerization selectivity.

    • Lingbo Xing
    • , Jie Li
    •  & Kai Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanotexture-sensitive fracture focusing during magma fragmentation determines the surface chemistry of volcanic ash particles, thereby modifying the reactive interface and subsequent environmental impacts

    • Adrian J. Hornby
    • , Paul M. Ayris
    •  & Donald B. Dingwell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling site-selectivity and reactivity in chemical reactions continues to be a key challenge in modern synthetic chemistry. Here, the authors demonstrate the assembly of amino-substituted porphyrins on a water surface into J-aggregate structures in the presence of charged surfactants.

    • Anupam Prasoon
    • , Xiaoqing Yu
    •  & Xinliang Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemical identification of the building blocks of biopolymers often considerably relies on the presence of markers, extensive simulations, or is not possible at all. Here, the authors report a molecular probe-sensitisation approach addressing the identification of a specific amino acid within different peptides.

    • Xu Wu
    • , Bogdana Borca
    •  & Uta Schlickum

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Achieving unit-by-unit isomerization within a molecular array poses a significant challenge in chemistry. Here, the authors demonstrate tip-induced stereoisomerization of dehydroazulene and diradical units in three-dimensional organometallic compounds on Ag(111).

    • Shigeki Kawai
    • , Orlando J. Silveira
    •  & Adam S. Foster

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Supported CoOx catalysts display higher reactivities towards CO oxidation, yet, corresponding catalytically active phases are still unclear, especially under reaction conditions. Here, by means of in-situ APXPS and ResPES, the authors demonstrate that the topographic restructuring and chemical restructuring occur on these CoOx working catalysts, and also highlight the unique catalytic properties of Co3+ sites.

    • Hao Chen
    • , Lorenz J. Falling
    •  & Miquel Salmeron

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report Zn porphene, a member of a new organic metalloporphene family. Similar to graphene, these also are fully conjugated 2D polymers, but are composed of fused metalloporphyrin rings.

    • Thomas F. Magnera
    • , Paul I. Dron
    •  & Josef Michl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    On-surface synthesis (OSS) defines a special opportunity to investigate intermolecular coupling at. sub-molecular level and has delivered many appealing polymers but so-far OSS is limited to the. lateral covalent bonding of molecular precursors. Here, the authors demonstrate cycloaddition. between C60 and an aromatic compound allowing covalent coupling perpendicular to the surface and multiple non-planar covalent coupling of C60.

    • Pengcheng Ding
    • , Shaoshan Wang
    •  & Miao Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding of the direct methane conversion mechanism is essential for further development of efficient catalysts. Here, authors demonstrate a general methyl radical chemistry for metal single site catalysis regardless of the support (either zeolite or SiO2) in non-oxidative methane activation.

    • Xin Huang
    • , Daniel Eggart
    •  & Xinhe Bao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors simultaneously capture dynamic Raman spectral evidence of Ru surfaces, interfacial water, *H and *OH intermediates, and the interactions between them, demonstrating the regulation of Ru valence state on interfacial water and intermediates for catalytic activity improvement.

    • Xing Chen
    • , Xiao-Ting Wang
    •  & Jian-Feng Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanographenes, as their name suggests, are small sections of graphene. They offer a diverse array of magnetic behaviors; for example, sublattice imbalances in the nanographene lead to unpaired spins. Here, Du et al uncover a large variation in the exchange energy in nanographenes, due to changes in the frontier orbital symmetries.

    • Qingyang Du
    • , Xuelei Su
    •  & Ping Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cobalt-based oxidic anodes with added iron are good electrocatalysts for alkaline oxygen evolution reaction, but the role of iron is still unclear. Here the authors investigate oxygen evolution reaction activity of three well-defined epitaxial thin-film electrodes to address this issue.

    • Earl Matthew Davis
    • , Arno Bergmann
    •  & Beatriz Roldan Cuenya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Catalytic CO2 dissociation pathways are selectively determined by surface geometry in heterogeneous catalysis. The authors find that the stepped Cu surfaces effectively affect CO2 activation in elementary reaction steps at the atomic level

    • Jeongjin Kim
    • , Youngseok Yu
    •  & Jeong Young Park

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The collective intermolecular dynamics of protein and water molecules, which overlap in subterahertz frequencies, are relevant for protein function expressions. Here the authors develop highly sensitive dielectric measurements, revealing that protein hydration is nonthermally accelerated by sub-terahertz irradiation.

    • Jun-ichi Sugiyama
    • , Yuji Tokunaga
    •  & Masahiko Imashimizu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Distinguishing the influence of oxygen functional groups in carbon materials is important but elusive. Here, the authors combine experimental and machine learning techniques and reveal that phenolic groups are more acidic than carboxylic groups.

    • Jiahua Zhou
    • , Piaoping Yang
    •  & Dionisios G. Vlachos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Enetriynes, which belong to the enyne family, are characterized by a distinct electron-rich carbon-bonding scheme. Here, the authors report the formation of enetriynes with high selectivity by tetramerization of terminal alkynes on Ag(100).

    • Nan Cao
    • , Biao Yang
    •  & Johannes V. Barth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    On-surface synthesis allows fabrication of nanostructures with atomic precision and may follow different routes compared to in-solution chemistry. Here the authors, using scanning probe microscopy techniques, observe a phenyl group migration reaction on three different metal surfaces forming polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which cannot be accessed by in-solution chemistry.

    • Zilin Ruan
    • , Baijin Li
    •  & Jinming Cai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polydopamine is a biomimetic self-adherent polymer, which can be easily deposited on a wide variety of materials but the polymerization mechanism and the key intermediate species formed during the deposition process are still controversial. Here, the authors report a systematic investigation of polydopamine formation on halloysite nanotubes.

    • Hamoon Hemmatpour
    • , Oreste De Luca
    •  & Petra Rudolf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen spillover is a surface phenomenon encountered in catalytic reactions. Here the authors show that the surface-lattice-confinement effect can regulate the hydrogen spillover directions and accelerate spillover rates. It is intrinsically related to the local surface geometries and coordination numbers of surface O sites.

    • Yijing Liu
    • , Rankun Zhang
    •  & Qiang Fu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Probing gas sorption on defects and facets of porous materials at the nanoscale is challenging. Here, we visualize nano-domains of preferred formaldehyde sorption on (defective) ZIF-8 microcrystals using in situ Photo-induced Force Microscopy (PiFM).

    • Guusje Delen
    • , Matteo Monai
    •  & Bert M. Weckhuysen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transplantation of helpful bacteria has been used to treat disease through modulating host microbiota. Here, the authors report a strategy to control bacteria localization in the jejunum, via an in vivo in-situ thiol-disulfide exchange reaction between surface-reactive bacteria and mucous.

    • Huilong Luo
    • , Yanmei Chen
    •  & Jinyao Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unravelling the mechanism of chirality transfer in supramolecular assemblies is important to understand the relationship between molecular chirality and supramolecular chirality. Here, the authors use nonlinear spectroscopy and molecular dynamic simulations to study the long-range chirality transfer in a self-assembled supramolecular system.

    • Yuening Zhang
    • , Xujin Qin
    •  & Zhen Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One of the possible events signaling a neutrinoless double beta decay is a Xe atom decaying into a Ba ion and two electrons. Aiming at the realisation of a detector for such a process, the authors show that Ba ions can be efficiently trapped (chelated) in vacuum by an organic molecule layer on a surface.

    • P. Herrero-Gómez
    • , J. P. Calupitan
    •  & J. T. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fouling is a continuous challenge for the effective application of membranes in oily wastewater treatment. Here, the authors present a hydrophobic chain engineering strategy to regulate the surface of graphene oxide-based membranes at a molecular scale for increased antifouling even at high permeance.

    • Chao Yang
    • , Mengying Long
    •  & Zhongyi Jiang

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