Dr. Jiye Fang's Nano Research Group

In noble metal nanocrystals (NCs), lattice strain can significantly influence catalytic performance by modifying the electronic structure of the material. In particular, lattice contraction often leads to a downshift of the d-band center, which weakens the adsorption strength of reaction intermediates on catalyst surfaces. This electronic tuning provides an effective strategy for optimizing catalytic activity and selectivity.

Bimetallic NCs are especially promising electrocatalysts because their performance can be tuned through several synergistic surface effects, including the ligand effect, ensemble effect, and strain effect. Among these, strain-induced surface modification plays a key role in regulating the interaction between surface active sites and reactants or reaction intermediates. By carefully controlling structural parameters, such as particle morphology, size, shell thickness, surface defects, and composition, it is possible to engineer lattice strain and thereby enhance the electrochemical performance of these nanomaterials.

The goal of this project is to advance the development of strain-engineered catalytic sites using a variety of state-of-the-art noble metal nanocrystals as model systems. One effective approach involves creating lattice-stressed structures through the dealloying of binary nanoalloys, which can produce surface-strained catalysts with enhanced activity.

These strain-engineered nanocrystals are being investigated for a range of important electrochemical reactions, including the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water splitting, and the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (eCO₂RR). Understanding and controlling lattice strain in these nanoscale catalysts provides a powerful pathway for designing next-generation electrocatalysts with improved efficiency, stability, and selectivity.