George Hasegawa

Amine/Hydrido Bifunctional Nanoporous Silica with Small Metal Nanoparticles Made Onsite: Efficient Dehydrogenation Catalyst

Multifunctional catalysts are of great interest in catalysis because their multiple types of catalytic or functional groups can cooperatively promote catalytic transformations better than their constituents do individually. Herein we report a new synthetic route involving the surface functionalization of nanoporous silica with a rationally designed and synthesized dihydrosilane (3-aminopropylmethylsilane) that leads to the introduction of catalytically active grafted organoamine as well as single metal atoms and ultrasmall Pd or Ag-doped Pd nanoparticles via on-site reduction of metal ions. The resulting nanomaterials serve as highly effective bifunctional dehydrogenative catalysts for generation of H2 from formic acid.

Infiltrated porous oxide monoliths as high lithium transference number electrolytes

We show for the first time that liquid–solid lithium electrolytes can exhibit both a very high lithium transference number (up to 0.89) and high overall ionic conductivity (up to 0.48 mS cm−1) when the solid contains a large number of mesopores covered by a high density of –OH groups enabling anionic adsorption.

Nanostructured titanium phosphates prepared via hydrothermal reaction and their electrochemical Li- and Na-ion intercalation properties

In this report, we demonstrate a facile and versatile methodology for synthesizing a series of titanium phosphates (TiPs) with various morphologies. The hydrothermal reactions of TiO2 in different concentrations of H3PO4 aq. yield 4 types of crystal structures with diverse shapes, such as nanoparticles, nanorods and nanosheets, which are assembled into a variety of flower-like morphologies. The dependence of the crystal phases and morphologies of TiPs on the synthesis conditions have been comprehensively investigated. This synthetic process can be further extended to other TiP derivatives incorporated with guest cations (e.g. NH4+ and Na+) simply by adding the corresponding phosphate salts to the starting composition, which leads to the morphological variation associated with the change of the crystal phase. The mechanism for the formation of the TiPs is discussed in terms of the stable Ti-based ion species relying on the pH value of the reaction solution. In addition, the correlation between the crystal structures and morphologies of TiPs and their electrochemical Li- and Na-ion storage behaviors are demonstrated as well, which discloses the different tendencies of morphological effects between the Li- and Na-ion systems.

Correction: Infiltrated porous oxide monoliths as high lithium transference number electrolytes

Correction for ‘Infiltrated porous oxide monoliths as high lithium transference number electrolytes’ by Jelena Popovic et al., J. Mater. Chem. A, 2016, 4, 7135–7140.