Nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon materials have been extensively studied as potential replacements for Pt-based electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, little is known about the catalytic mechanisms, including the parameters that determine the selectivity of the reaction. By comparing theoretical calculations of the ORR selectivity at a well-defined graphene nanostructure with experimental results, we propose a model based on interfacial solvation to explain the observed preference for the four-electron pathway in alkaline electrolytes. The hydrophobic environment around the active sites, as in enzymatic catalysis, restricts the access of water and destabilizes small ionic species such as peroxide, the product of the two-electron pathway. This model, when applied to acidic electrolytes, shows the ORR preferring the two-electron pathway, consistent with the well-known pH-dependent ORR selectivity catalyzed by graphitic carbon materials. Because of the similarity between more complex N-doped graphitic carbon materials and our model system, we can extend this model to the former and rationalize nearly all of the previously reported experimental results on the selectivity of ORR catalyzed by these materials.

Improving energy efficiency of electrocatalytic and photocatalytic CO conversion to useful chemicals poses a significant scientific challenge. We report on using a colloidal nanographene to form a molecular complex with a metal ion to tackle this challenge. In this work, a well-defined nanographene-Re complex was synthesized, in which electron delocalization over the nanographene and the metal ion significantly decreases the electrical potential needed to drive the chemical reduction. We show the complex can selectively electrocatalyze CO reduction to CO in tetrahydrofuran at -0.48 V vs NHE, the least negative potential reported for a molecular catalyst. In addition, the complex can absorb a significant spectrum of visible light to photocatalyze the chemical transformation without the need for a photosensitizer.

Nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon has been intensively studied for potential use as an electrocatalyst in fuel cells for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, the lack of a mechanistic understanding on the carbon catalysis has severely hindered the progress of the catalyst development. Herein we use a well-defined graphene nanostructure as a model system and, for the first time, reveal an oxygen activation mechanism that involves carbanion intermediates in these materials. Our work shows that the overpotential of the electrocatalytic ORR is determined by the generation of the carbanion intermediates, and the current by the rate the intermediates activate oxygen.

We present a novel and systematic fragmentation scheme to treat polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) built off the molecules-in-molecules composite method. Our algorithm generates a set of biphenyl and naphthalene subsystems overlapping by whole sextet rings, ensuring all calculations are performed on aromatic molecules. Hence, our method is called Aromatic Fragmentation Based on a Ring Overlap Scheme (AroBOROS), and the generated fragments may be combined to form a hierarchy of subsystems to reduce errors for more complex PAHs. Errors are reduced to below chemical accuracy by combining subsystems that reflect the lowest energy structures determined by Clar’s rule of aromatic sextets, and this is shown on two diverse test sets of PAHs ranging from 18 to 84 carbon atoms. Additionally, evaluations are performed for larger PAHs, as well as a nanotube fragment, containing up to 132 carbon atoms, and it is shown that good results may be achieved even with fragments representing an appreciably small portion of the full system.

Graphite monofluoride (GF) can undergo reductive defluorination in the presence of weak, non-nucleophilic reductants. This leads to a new approach to GF-polyaniline composites as cathode materials for significantly improving the discharge capacity of primary lithium batteries. We postulate that the reduction is mediated by residual π-bonds in GF.

Graphene fluorination with XeF2 is an attractive method to introduce a nonzero bandgap to graphene under mild conditions for potential electro-optical applications. Herein, we use well-defined graphene nanostructures as a model system to study the reaction mechanism of graphene fluorination by XeF2. Our combined experimental and theoretical studies show that the reaction can proceed through a radical cation mechanism, leading to fluorination and sp(3)-hybridized carbon in the basal plane.

Carbon materials have played very important roles in our society. Due to their complexity and inhomogeneity, however, our understandings of these materials have seriously lagged behind. As a result, development of new carbon materials has been largely based on trial and error. Here we review our recent work on using well-defined colloidal graphene quantum dots as model systems to study fundamental processes in carbon materials. Future directions and limitations of this approach are also discussed.

The differences between the dissociative adsorption of chloroethane-d 5 (C2D5Cl) and iodoethane-d 5 (C2D5I) on a Si(100)-2 × 1 surface are compared by analyzing the results of density functional theory (DFT) calculations and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) experiments. The adsorption mechanism for both chloroethane-d 5 and iodoethane-d 5 on a clean Si(100)-2 × 1 surface is based on a dissociative chemisorption following halogen–carbon bond cleavage. Further surface transformations upon heating cause hydrogen elimination by ethyl groups, followed by ethylene and hydrogen desorption. The key difference between iodo- and chloro-derivatives is that the corresponding sticking probabilities of chloroethane-d 5 and iodoethane-d 5 in the same reaction system are extremely different. The experimental study reveals that the exposure for the monolayer saturation of chloroethane-d 5 is 20 times higher than that for iodoethane-d 5. These differences are attributed to the stability of surface-mediated molecular adsorbates rather than to the differences in the dissociation barriers based on the DFT investigation.