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Unveiling reductant chemistry in fabricating noble metal aerogels for superior oxygen evolution and ethanol oxidation.

ABSTRACT: Amongst various porous materials, noble metal aerogels attract wide attention due to their concurrently featured catalytic properties and large surface areas. However, insufficient understanding and investigation of key factors (e.g. reductants and ligands) in the fabrication process limits on-target design, impeding material diversity and available applications. Herein, unveiling multiple roles of reductants, we develop an efficient method, i.e. the excessive-reductant-directed gelation strategy. It enables to integrate ligand chemistry for creating gold aerogels with a record-high specific surface area (59.8?m² g^-1), and to expand the composition to all common noble metals. Moreover, we demonstrate impressive electrocatalytic performance of these aerogels for the ethanol oxidation and oxygen evolution reaction, and discover an unconventional organic-ligand-enhancing effect. The present work not only enriches the composition and structural diversity of noble metal aerogels, but also opens up new dimensions for devising efficient electrocatalysts for broad material systems.

SUBMITTER: Du R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7101436 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Unveiling reductant chemistry in fabricating noble metal aerogels for superior oxygen evolution and ethanol oxidation.

Du Ran R Wang Jinying J Wang Ying Y Hübner René R Fan Xuelin X Senkovska Irena I Hu Yue Y Kaskel Stefan S Eychmüller Alexander A

Nature communications 20200327 1

Amongst various porous materials, noble metal aerogels attract wide attention due to their concurrently featured catalytic properties and large surface areas. However, insufficient understanding and investigation of key factors (e.g. reductants and ligands) in the fabrication process limits on-target design, impeding material diversity and available applications. Herein, unveiling multiple roles of reductants, we develop an efficient method, i.e. the excessive-reductant-directed gelation strateg ...[more]

PMID: 32221287

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Project description:CONSPECTUS: Metallic and catalytically active materials with high surface area and large porosity are a long-desired goal in both industry and academia. In this Account, we summarize the strategies for making a variety of self-supported noble metal aerogels consisting of extended metal backbone nanonetworks. We discuss their outstanding physical and chemical properties, including their three-dimensional network structure, the simple control over their composition, their large specific surface area, and their hierarchical porosity. Additionally, we show some initial results on their excellent performance as electrocatalysts combining both high catalytic activity and high durability for fuel cell reactions such as ethanol oxidation and the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Finally, we give some hints on the future challenges in the research area of metal aerogels. We believe that metal aerogels are a new, promising class of electrocatalysts for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) and will also open great opportunities for other electrochemical energy systems, catalysis, and sensors. The commercialization of PEFCs encounters three critical obstacles, viz., high cost, insufficient activity, and inadequate long-term durability. Besides others, the sluggish kinetics of the ORR and alcohol oxidation and insufficient catalyst stability are important reasons for these obstacles. Various approaches have been taken to overcome these obstacles, e.g., by controlling the catalyst particle size in an optimized range, forming multimetallic catalysts, controlling the surface compositions, shaping the catalysts into nanocrystals, and designing supportless catalysts with extended surfaces such as nanostructured thin films, nanotubes, and porous nanostructures. These efforts have produced plenty of excellent electrocatalysts, but the development of multisynergetic functional catalysts exhibiting low cost, high activity, and high durability still faces great challenges. In this Account, we demonstrate that the sol-gel process represents a powerful "bottom-up" strategy for creating nanostructured materials that tackles the problems mentioned above. Aerogels are unique solid materials with ultralow densities, large open pores, and ultimately high inner surface areas. They magnify the specific properties of nanomaterials to the macroscale via self-assembly, which endow them with superior properties. Despite numerous investigations of metal oxide aerogels, the investigation of metal aerogels is in the early stage. Recently, aerogels including Fe, Co, Ni, Sn, and Cu have been obtained by nanosmelting of hybrid polymer-metal oxide aerogels. We report here exclusively on mono-, bi- and multimetallic noble metal aerogels consisting of Ag, Au, Pt, and Pd and their application as electrocatalysts.

Project description:Pseudomonas aeruginosa has a broad metabolic repertoire that facilitates its coexistence with different microbes. Many microbes secrete products that P. aeruginosa can then catabolize, including ethanol, a common fermentation product. Here, we show that under oxygen-limiting conditions P. aeruginosa utilizes AdhA, an NAD-linked alcohol dehydrogenase, as a previously undescribed means for ethanol catabolism. In a rich medium containing ethanol, AdhA, but not the previously described PQQ-linked alcohol dehydrogenase, ExaA, oxidizes ethanol and leads to the accumulation of acetate in culture supernatants. AdhA-dependent acetate accumulation and the accompanying decrease in pH promote P. aeruginosa survival in LB-grown stationary-phase cultures. The transcription of adhA is elevated by hypoxia and under anoxic conditions, and we show that it is regulated by the Anr transcription factor. We have shown that lasR mutants, which lack an important quorum sensing regulator, have higher levels of Anr-regulated transcripts under low-oxygen conditions than their wild-type counterparts. Here, we show that a lasR mutant, when grown with ethanol, has an even larger decrease in pH than the wild type (WT) that is dependent on both anr and adhA The large increase in AdhA activity is similar to that of a strain expressing a hyperactive Anr-D149A variant. Ethanol catabolism in P. aeruginosa by AdhA supports growth on ethanol as a sole carbon source and electron donor in oxygen-limited settings and in cells growing by denitrification under anoxic conditions. This is the first demonstration of a physiological role for AdhA in ethanol oxidation in P. aeruginosa IMPORTANCE Ethanol is a common product of microbial fermentation, and the Pseudomonas aeruginosa response to and utilization of ethanol are relevant to our understanding of its role in microbial communities. Here, we report that the putative alcohol dehydrogenase AdhA is responsible for ethanol catabolism and acetate accumulation under low-oxygen conditions and that it is regulated by Anr.

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Unveiling reductant chemistry in fabricating noble metal aerogels for superior oxygen evolution and ethanol oxidation.

Publications

Unveiling reductant chemistry in fabricating noble metal aerogels for superior oxygen evolution and ethanol oxidation.

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