Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (11): 2913-2935.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(22)64167-6

• Review • Previous Articles    

Surface chemistry of MXene quantum dots: Virus mechanism-inspired mini-lab for catalysis

Yuhua Liu, Wei Zhang*(), Weitao Zheng#()   

  1. Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials MOE, and School of Materials Science & Engineering, and Jilin Provincial International Cooperation Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Clean Energy Materials, and Electron Microscopy Center, and International Center of Future Science, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, Jilin, China
  • Received:2022-06-21 Accepted:2022-08-16 Online:2022-11-18 Published:2022-10-20
  • Contact: Wei Zhang, Weitao Zheng
  • About author:Wei Zhang (Jilin University) obtained his Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Metal Research Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004. Then He held positions in NIMS-Japan, Samsung AIT-South Korea, Fritz-Haber Institute of MPG-Germany, DTU-Denmark and CIC Energigune-Spain. He was awarded Ikerbasque Research Professor in 2016. In 2014, he became a full professor at Jilin University and has been selected as Tang Auchin Scholar Leading Professor since 2020; Now he serves as the Director of the Electron Microscopy Center of Jilin University. His current research focuses on surface and interface of advanced energy materials and catalysts. Prof. Zhang was invited as a member of the editorial board of Communications Chemistry at Nature Publishing Group.
    Weitao Zheng (Jilin University) is Cheung Kong Distinguished Professor and Vice President of Jilin University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree at Jilin University in 1990. After that, he held positions at the Royal Institute of Sweden, Linköping University, Chiba Institute of Technology, and Nanyang University of Technology. His current research focuses on energy materials, functional thin films, and catalysts. Prof. Zheng was invited as an editorial board member of Applied Surface Science and Vacuum.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(51872115);National Natural Science Foundation of China(51932003);2020 International Cooperation Project of the Department of Science and Technology of Jilin Province(20200801001GH)

Abstract:

Scientific research is currently more interdisciplinary. Researchers have parsed the surface structure of virus, constructed the interaction model of virus-receptors, offering the clues for studying efficient targeted drugs. Likewise, catalysis is also highly relevant to modern human life. Exploring the surface structure and physicochemical properties of catalysts is of great significance for the design of efficient catalysts. Great progresses have been made for endowing specific physicochemical properties of catalysts through controlling the size of materials and coordination chemistry of active sites, particularly at nanometer scale since Sir John Meurig Thomas and Tao Zhang’s early ground-breaking contribution, with casting on a very surface issue. Herein, functional regulation renders the emerging MXene quantum dots (MQDs) excel in contrast to the typical carbon-based quantum dots. In fact, similar to the interaction of virus-receptors model, the surface functional groups decorated MQDs provide a mini-lab to afford a variety of adjustments, involved with the type modification and electronic structure tuning of groups as well as their arrangement, together with the interaction between the groups and active materials/support, ultimately for packaging or designing high-activity catalysts.

Key words: Surface chemistry, Functional group, Structure characterization, Mxene, Quantum dot