Hao Feng

Nanjing University of Science and Technology | NJUST · School of Energy and Power Engineering

All-vanadium photoelectrochemical cell possesses the inherent merits of both the all-vanadium redox flow battery and the solar energy utilization, which can directly store the solar energy in the form of the chemical energy. A promising design of the photoelectrochemical cell should provide large active surface area and ensure efficient transport o...

The hydrodynamic characteristics of gas-liquid two-phase flow can significantly affect the performance of gas-liquid-solid microreactors. Using nitrobenzene hydrogenation as the reference heterogeneous catalytic reaction, the two-phase reacting flow behavior was visualized and characterized. Distinct differences in the length evolution and migratio...

Selective electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) requires efficient triple-phase contact of CO2 molecules, electrolyte and active sites of electrocatalyst. To achieve this, studies have sought to use surface modifications to electrodes. However, the stability of these modifications and their effects on the intrinsic properties of electrodes...

Microfluidics refers to the technology of controlling or operating minute amounts of fluids in microchannels with the characteristic dimension of the submillimeter scale. Ascribing to the extremely large specific surface area, microfluidics inherently allows the potential in facilitating energy and mass transport. To date, microfluidic devices have...

Plasmon-mediated photocatalytic water splitting holds promise for efficient solar energy harvesting. Experimental studies have shown that “hot spots” in an assembly of plasmonic nanoclusters, which is the real case for practical applications, are beneficial for photocatalysis, but the interactions between different nanoclusters are difficult to obs...

The community of electrochemical CO2 reduction is almost exclusively focused on gaseous CO2-fed electrolyzers. Here, we proposed a pressurized CO2-Captured solution electrolyzer to produce solar Fuel of CO (abbreviated "CCF") without the need to regenerate gaseous CO2. Specifically, we developed an experimentally validated multiscale model to quant...

As a promising technology, microreactors have been regarded as a potential candidate for heterogeneous catalytic reactions as they inherently allow the superior advantages of precise flow control, efficient reactant transfer, flexible operation, etc. However, the wide market penetration of microreactors is still facing severe challenges. One of the...

Hydrogen production from water electrolysis provides an effective bridge between the existing energy system and the layout of green renewable energy. Electrochemical hydrogen gas evolution on the electrode surface will occupy the limited active sites thus significantly increasing the reaction overpotential. It is crucial to study and optimize the b...

Photocatalytic water splitting is a promising route for hydrogen production and solar energy storage. Plasmon-mediated water splitting has the potential to harvest photons with longer wavelengths compared with semiconductor-based photocatalysis. However, the mechanism of plasmon-induced charge transfer, the determining step of photochemistry, is no...

The aqueous electrochemical CO2 reduction to valuable products is seen as one of the most promising candidates to achieve carbon neutrality yet still suffers from poor selectivity and lower current density. Highly efficient CO2 reduction significantly relies on well‐constructed electrode to realize efficient and stable triple‐phase contact of CO2,...

The salient question addressed in this work is whether and how photovoltaic-biased photoelectrocatalysis (PV-PEC) can fairly and practically be as competitive as photovoltaic-powered electrocatalysis (PV-EC) for solar-driven carbon dioxide reduction (CO2RR). It was argued that to fairly evaluate PV-PEC and PV-EC CO2RR approaches in terms of techno-...

Solar energy storage in the form of chemical energy is considered a promising alternative for solar energy utilization. High-performance solar energy conversion and storage significantly rely on the sufficient active surface area and the efficient transport of both reactants and charge carriers. Herein, the structure evolution of titania nanotube p...

We demonstrated an efficient solar photovoltaic-powered electrochemical CO2 reduction device with a high-pressure CO2-captured liquid feed. In an “air-to-barrel” picture, this device holds promise to avoid both high-temperature gaseous CO2 regeneration and high energy-cost gas product separation steps, while these steps are necessary for devices wi...

Photoelectrochemical Redox Batteries In article number 2200469, Qiang Li, Rong Chen, Liang An and co‐workers present a comprehensive review of research and development progress in photoelectrochemical redox batteries from materials to devices. The fundamental understanding of the energy level matching, transport mechanisms, and performance indicato...

Single‐Atom Catalysts The low loading of single‐atom catalysts makes it difficult to improve their overall activity. In article number 2200073, Ang Li, Erjun Kan, Li Song, Jinlong Gong, and co‐workers report a chemical scissors strategy to saturate the anchoring sites for single atoms, which elevates the loading of Pd single atoms even on bare subs...

The photoelectrochemical redox battery (PRB) has been regarded as an alternative candidate for large‐scale solar energy capture, conversion, and storage as it combines the superior advantages of photoelectrochemical devices and redox batteries. As an emerging solar energy utilization technology, significant progress has been made towards promoting...

Herein, an in-situ visual method was developed to determine the residence time characteristic of a typical gas-liquid Taylor reacting flow in a microchannel reactor. Nitrobenzene hydrogenation was chosen as a reference heterogeneous reaction. The obtained results demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed in-situ visual method in determining the...

Atomically dispersed metal catalysts often exhibit high catalytic performances, but the metal loading density must be kept low to avoid the formation of metal nanoparticles, making it difficult to improve the overall activity. Diverse strategies based on creating more anchoring sites (ASs) have been adopted to elevate the loading density. One probl...

Efficient charge separation is crucial for solar energy conversion in semiconductor-based systems. Creating p-n junction is an effective strategy to enhance charge separation because the built-in electric field could inhibit charge recombination. However, in many situations, the high reaction barrier will limit the surface reaction rate, resulting...

Electrocatalytic generation of nanometre gas bubbles (nanobubbles) and their tuning are important for many energy and chemical processes. Studies have sought to use indirect or ex situ methods to investigate the dynamics and properties of nanobubbles, which are of fundamental interest. Alternatively, we present a molecular dynamics simulation metho...

Controlling the products, i.e. achieving high selectivity, is essential yet challenging for many chemical processes. So far, ex/in situ methods have been reported to prepare selective catalysts; here, we present a distinct operational strategy. To demonstrate its power and simplicity, a high-pressure artificial photosynthetic device (HiPAD) was des...

Photocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CRR) represents a prospective route for the clean utilization of greenhouse gas CO2 and solar energy, and cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is a favourable material for CRR to avoid excess generation of hydrogen through the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the application of Cu2O-based photocatalysts...

In this work, a highly efficient TiO2 nanotube array photoanode prepared by the anodizing treatment of titanium foil is developed for an all-vanadium photoelectrochemical cell with minimization design towards the solar energy storage. Such highly ordered structure presents the intrinsic advantages of not only providing large active surface area and...

In this work, structured Ni-B amorphous alloy catalysts on Ni foam (termed as Ni-B/Ni foam catalyst) were proposed for the nitrobenzene catalytic hydrogenation by a facile and effective electroless plating technique. Non-noble Ni-B catalysts could effectively reduce the cost of the reactor for large-scale industrial application. Moreover, benefit f...

In this work, an anion-exchange membrane electrode assembled photoelectrochemical cell is designed for simultaneously degrading organics and generating electricity. The proposed photoelectrochemical cell is formed by assembling a visible light-responsive photoanode and an air-breathing cathode with an anion-exchange membrane. Benefited from the int...

The all-vanadium photoelectrochemical cell is one of the promising solar energy storage technologies. However, conventional photoanodes surfer from low solar energy utilization efficiency as a result of narrow spectrum response and poor mass transfer. Hence, in this study, a microfluidic all-vanadium photoelectrochemical cell with a full-spectrum-r...

Microreactors are able to address several issues pertaining to traditional reactors and therefore suitable for the gas-liquid-solid reactions. However, the preparation of high-performance catalyst layer in a microreactor via an easy and flexible way remains a major challenge. In this work, a multilayered (PSS-PAH-Pd)n catalytic hybrid film was prep...

In this work, a core-shell structured palladium catalyst layer in a gas-liquid-solid microreactor was proposed for the catalytic nitrobenzene hydrogenation through a facile and efficient approach. Via encapsulating the active palladium cores with the polydopamine shell, the proposed structure can construct barriers between the neighboring nanoparti...

The ultra-precise manipulation of the droplets at the microscale is a promising paradigm for broad implications in reagent transport and element analysis but the existing strategies still suffer from the cross-contamination or the miscellaneous auxiliaries. Inspired by the levitation, we develop a method for excellently manipulating levitated femto...

Heterogeneous catalysts with a considerable active surface area are critically important to achieve the excellent catalytic activity. In this work, hence, a hierarchical [email protected] catalyst with a snow-like Ni nanostructure was prepared by combining the hydrothermal synthesis method with spontaneously galvanic replacement reaction. The snow-...

In this study, the pH-response of the zwitterionic polydopamine layer to the palladium deposition in a capillary microchannel and the resultant catalytic performance for the nitrobenzene hydrogenation were explored. Experimental results showed that the polydoapmine layer exhibited the switchable surface charge from positive to negative with increas...

Microreactors are promising for fine chemistry and value-added chemical synthesis, but the small dimension places significant challenges in catalyst layer fabrication. Meanwhile, enhancing catalyst dispersion to obtain smaller particle size are of great interests. We proposed a multilayered Pd nanocatalysts with nano-bulge structure inside a micror...

In this study, a novel ternary hybrid CdS/SiO2/TiO2 film was proposed as the phonoanode for the photocatalytic fuel cell. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and UV–vis absorption. The photoelectrochemical activity of the ternary hybrid electrode was characterized by the photocurrent-time transient resp...

As a promising technique for multiphase catalytic reactions, the widespread applications of gas–liquid–solid microreactors are still limited by poor durability. Hence, in this work, a method for the preparation of Pd nanocatalysts inside a gas–liquid–solid microreactor was proposed to realize long-term durability using electroless deposition on the...

In this work, a microfluidic all-vanadium photoelectrochemical cell (μVPEC) was designed for the solar energy storage. The miniaturization design could enhance the photon and mass transport, reduce the internal cell resistance, and improve the uniformity of the light distribution. Because of these advantages, the developed μVPEC was able to yield g...

Unlike traditional gas–liquid–solid microreactors with the catalyst coated on the inner wall, a gas–liquid–solid monolithic microreactor with the Pd nanocatalyst coated on the polydopamine modified nickel foam was developed in this study. This new design enables large surface area for loading the nanocatalyst and enhancement of mass transfer. The p...

In this study, the layer-by-layer self-assembly technique was employed to synthesize the Pd nanocatalysts on the polyelectrolytes thin film of PAH-PSS grafted on the polydopamine functionalized surface for the development of the gas-liquid-solid microreactor. The utilization of this technique not only allows for strong adhesion of PAH-PSS on polydo...

In this study, visualization study on the gas-liquid two phase flow characteristics in a gas-liquid-solid microchannel reactor was carried out. Palladium nanocatalyst was coated onto the polydopamine functionalized surface of the microchannel through eletroless deposition. The materials characterization results indicated that palladium nanocatalyst...