南京大学Min Gu和Shicheng Yan课题组合作，开发出了金属氧化物粒子的直接电化学质子化。2021年6月8日，国际知名学术期刊《美国化学会杂志》发表了这一成果。

该工作中，研究人员利用电化学诱导的氧空位与水分子发生反应，在Na₂SO₄中性电解质中，开发了一种电化学路径直接质子化物理组装的氧化粒子，如TiO₂、Nb₂O₅和WO₃。电化学质子化不需要粒子之间或粒子与导电基质之间的电连接，而是遵循自下而上的粒子对粒子的表面质子化机制，因为质子化诱导了高的表面电导率，从而在粒子之间创造了一个有效的电子转移路径。

他们的结果表明，粒子的电化学质子化为通过调整电极电位很好地功能化单个粒子的表面提供了机会。这种简单、经济、绿色的路线易于大规模生产，并释放了半导体氧化物在各种应用中的潜力。

据介绍，具有表面质子化作用的金属氧化物表现出多种多样的物理化学性质，适用于许多领域。

附：英文原文

Title: Direct Electrochemical Protonation of Metal Oxide Particles

Author: Heng Zhu, Qimeng Yang, Depei Liu, Yu Du, Shicheng Yan, Min Gu, Zhigang Zou

Issue&Volume: June 8, 2021

Abstract: Metal oxides with surface protonation exhibit versatile physical and chemical properties suitable for use in many fields. Here, we develop an electrochemical route to directly protonize the physically assembled oxide particles, such as TiO2, Nb2O5, and WO3, in a Na2SO4 neutral electrolyte, which is a result of electrochemically induced oxygen vacancies reacting with water molecules. With no need of electric connection among particles or between particles and conductive substrate, the electrochemical protonation follows a bottom-up particle-by-particle surface protonation mechanism due to the fact that the protonation inducing high surface conductivity creates an efficient electron transfer pathway among particles. Our results show that electrochemical protonation of particles provides a chance to finely functionalize the surface of a single particle by only adjusting electrode potentials. Such a facile, cost-efficient, and green route is easy to run for a large-scale production and unlocks the potential of semiconductor oxides for various applications.

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c04631

Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c04631