State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems

This review summarizes the recent progress in methanation catalysts for SNG production, which will provide insights for future catalysts design.

To mitigate the growing pressure on resource depletion and environment degradation, the development of green processes for the production of renewable energy is highly required. As a class of novel and promising media, ionic liquids (ILs) have shown infusive potential applications in energy production. Aiming to offer a critical overview regarding the new challenges and opportunities of ILs for developing green processes of renewable energy, this article emphasises the role of ILs as catalysts, solvents, or electrolytes in three broadly interesting energy production processes from renewable resources, such as CO2 conversion to fuels and fuel additives, biomass pretreatment and conversion to biofuels, as well as solar energy and energy storage. It is expected that this article will stimulate a generation of new ideas and new technologies in IL-based renewable energy production.

Sustainable and effective methods for biomass pretreatment and biomass cascade utilization are reviewed in this work.

A systematic summary of strategies to improve the performance of electrochemical NRR catalysts and NRR catalytic systems.

Ionic liquids (ILs) have many potential applications in the chemical industry. In order to understand ILs, their molecular details have been extensively investigated. Intuitively, electrostatic forces are solely important in ILs. However, experiments and calculations have provided strong evidence for the existence of H-bonds in ILs and their roles in the properties and applications of ILs. As a structure-directing force, H-bonds are responsible for ionic pairing, stacking and self-assembling. Their geometric structure, interaction energy and electronic configuration in the ion-pairs of imidazolium-based ILs and protic ionic liquids (PILs) show a great number of differences compared to conventional H-bonds. In particular, their cooperation with electrostatic, dispersion and π interactions embodies the physical nature of H-bonds in ILs, which anomalously influences their properties, leading to a decrease in their melting points and viscosities and thus fluidizing them. Using ILs as catalysts and solvents, many reactions can be activated by the presence of H-bonds, which reduce the reaction barriers and stabilize the transition states. In the dissolution of lignocellulosic biomass by ILs, H-bonds exhibit a most important role in disrupting the H-bonding network of cellulose and controlling microscopic ordering into domains. In this article, a critical review is presented regarding the structural features of H-bonds in ILs and PILs, the correlation between H-bonds and the properties of ILs, and the roles of H-bonds in typical reactions.

The local charge redistribution in BiFeO₃/BiVO₄ hybrids promotes the targeted adsorption and activation of inert gas molecules and guarantees the exothermic coupling of *NN* with generated CO <italic>via</italic> C–N coupling reactions to form *NCON* precursor.

Ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted intensive attention in academia and industry due to their unique properties and potential applications. Nowadays, much interest is focused on finding out what is the main force that determines the properties of ionic liquids. Intuitively like NaCl, in high-temperature molten salt (HTMS) the electrostatic Coulomb force is regarded as the dominant factor that determines the behaviors of ILs. However, a large amount of evidence indicates that such a molten-salt-based simplified explanation is not consistent with the corresponding experimental results. Besides the Coulomb force, the hydrogen bond is another important noncovalent interaction in the IL and is closely related to some important properties and applications, as suggested in some new research results. Therefore in this review, we present results concerning the hydrogen bond in ILs, from the perspective of experiment and calculation, to shed light on its effects and roles. The deep insights into structure, in particular the hydrogen bonds, can provide us with a rational design for the new ILs to fulfill the demands in some complicated chemical processes.

A highly efficient, stable NiAu catalyst that exhibits unprecedented low temperature activity in lignin hydrogenolysis was for the first time developed, leading to the formation of 14 wt% aromatic monomers from organosolv lignin at 170 °C in pure water.

Two-dimensional (2D) carbon allotropes, which are atomic thick layers made of network carbon atoms with hexagonal structured lattices, have been neglected until the direct investigation of mechanically exfoliated graphene by Novoselov et al. in 2004. Graphene is a 2D carbon allotrope with a unique structure of hexagonally arranged atoms that give it unparalleled electrical conductivity and carrier mobility, in addition to excellent mechanical flexibility and extremely high specific surface area. Graphene and its derivatives have been extensively studied for photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications due to their inherent nature to extract and transport charges from photon-absorbing semiconductors and conjugated polymers. Graphyne and graphdiyne, 2D carbon allotropes like graphene but containing not only doubly but also triply bonded carbon atoms, are predicted to possess intrinsic semiconductor bandgap and even more superior electrical properties than graphene. The current theoretical understanding and experimental status of graphyne and graphdiyne will be discussed in contrast of graphene, demonstrating those promising competitors to graphene in further lightening a new photoconversion. This review addresses the recent successes and current challenges of graphene, graphyne and graphdiyne, and provides insightful perspectives for the future applications of 2D carbon materials in photoelectric conversion and photocatalysis.

Glycolysis of PET is a prospective way for degradation of PET to its monomer bis(hydroxyethyl)terephthalate (BHET) which can be polymerized again to form new qualified PET materials, and hence provides possibilities for a permanent loop recycling.

A facile, green and effective one-pot wet-chemical co-reduction method was developed for preparation of Pt–Au pNDs/RGOs in the presence of cytosine. The nanocomposites exhibited significantly enhanced catalytic performance for 4-nitrophenol reduction.

O resistance. Given the current problems, this review points out the future research focus of Mn-based catalysts and also puts forward corresponding countermeasures to solve the existing problems.

The capacity of NH₃ in PIL [Bim][NTf₂] was up to 2.69 mol NH₃ per mol IL under ambient conditions.

Nanoscale Cu–Pd alloy multipods were synthesized<italic>via</italic>the galvanic replacement reaction for catalyzing formic acid oxidation and oxygen reduction.

To prepare DOTP more cheaply and efficiently, PET was used as a raw material and a ChCl-based DES was synthesized as a catalyst.

Effective separation and migration of photogenerated electron-hole pairs are two key factors to determine the performance of photocatalysts. It has been widely accepted that photocatalysts with heterojunctions usually exhibit excellent charge separation. However, the migration process of separated charges in the heterojunction structures has not been fully investigated. Herein, photocatalysts with heterojunctions are constructed by loading g-C3N4 nanoparticles onto BiOCl nanosheets with different exposed facets (BOC-001 and BOC-010). The g-C3N4 nanoparticles with decreasing size and increasing zeta potential could induce stronger coupling and scattering in the heterojunction. The relationship between the crystal facet orientation in the BiOCl nanosheets and charge separation/effective migration behaviours of the materials is investigated. The visible light photocatalytic activity of the composites is evaluated by methyl orange (MO) and phenol degradation experiments, and the results show that ng-CN/BOC-010 composites exhibit higher photocatalytic performance than that of ng-CN/BOC-001 composites. Both photoelectrochemical and fluorescence emission measurements indicate that the different exposed facets in ng-CN/BiOCl composites could induce the migration of the photogenerated electrons in different ways, but do not significantly alter the separation efficiencies. The separated electrons in ng-CN/BOC-010 undergo a shorter transport distance than that of ng-CN/BOC-001 to reach the surface reactive sites. The study may suggest that the crystal facet orientation in polar semiconductors is a critical factor for designing highly efficient heterojunction photocatalysts.

Cobalt ionic liquids with highly efficient and reversible absorption of NH₃ through Lewis acid–base and hydrogen bond interactions were designed.

The simulation studies provide an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of lignocellulose utilization<italic>via</italic>dissolution, catalytic conversion and pyrolysis.

The efficient ammonia absorption capacities of hydroxyl-functionalized ILs are due to the strong hydrogen bonding between the N atom of NH₃ and the H atom of the hydroxyl on cation.

Co-interaction lead to dissolution of lignin in ILs: H-bonds and π–π stacking.