Publications by Raffaella Buonsanti

Overcoming Copper Stability Challenges in Co2 Electrolysis

Raffaella Buonsanti, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Jari Leemans

Copper and copper-based catalysts can electrochemically convert CO2 into ethylene and higher alcohols, among other products, at room temperature and pressure. This approach may be suitable for the production of high-value compounds. However, such a promisi ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2025

The Chemical Nature of the Oxide Directs the Stability and Reactivity of Copper|Oxide Interfaces in the Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Reaction

Raffaella Buonsanti, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Coline Marie Agathe Boulanger, Krishna Kumar, Jari Leemans

Understanding the impact of composition and interfaces between metals and oxides is a goal of interest for many chemical reactions. Herein, we propose a framework to map correlations between the electrochemical behavior of the oxide and the stability and r ...

American Chemical Society (ACS)2025

C-ald-grown Metal Oxide Shell Enables Distance-independent Triplet Energy Transfer From Quantum Dots to Molecular Dyes

Raffaella Buonsanti, Ona Segura Lecina

Hybrid nanocomposites including quantum dots (QDs) and molecular dyes offer tunability of charge and energy transfer processes, which are attractive for applications spanning from light-emitting devices to photocatalysis and photon upconversion. Core@shell ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2025

Active Sites under Electronic Effect Are More Sensitive to Microenvironment in CO2 Electroreduction

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Pattaraphon Rodlamul, Jari Leemans

American Chemical Society (ACS)2025

A Holistic Data-Driven Approach to Synthesis Predictions of Colloidal Nanocrystal Shapes

Philippe Schwaller, Raffaella Buonsanti, Ludovic Emile Frédy Zaza, Bojana Rankovic

The ability to precisely design colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) has far-reaching implications in optoelectronics, catalysis, biomedicine, and beyond. Achieving such control is generally based on a trial-and-error approach. Data-driven synthesis holds promise ...

2025

The Future of Colloidal Semiconductor Nanocrystals

Raffaella Buonsanti

2025

Hybrid oxide coatings generate stable Cu catalysts for CO2 electroreduction

Emad Oveisi, Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Ona Segura Lecina, Min Wang, Philippe Benjamin Green, Mark Adrian Newton

Hybrid organic/inorganic materials have contributed to solve important challenges in different areas of science. One of the biggest challenges for a more sustainable society is to have active and stable catalysts that enable the transition from fossil fuel ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Solution-based Cu+ transient species mediate the reconstruction of copper electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Jan Vávra, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Gaétan Philippe Louis Ramona

Understanding metal surface reconstruction is of the utmost importance in electrocatalysis, as this phenomenon directly affects the nature of available active sites. However, its dynamic nature renders surface reconstruction notoriously difficult to study. ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Long live(d) CsPbBr3 superlattices: colloidal atomic layer deposition for structural stability

Raffaella Buonsanti, Alexander Nicolas Chen, Philippe Benjamin Green, Victoria Lapointe

Superlattice formation afforded by metal halide perovskite nanocrystals has been a phenomenon of interest due to the high structural order induced in these self-assemblies, an order that is influenced by the surface chemistry and particle morphology of the ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Increasing Precursor Reactivity Enables Continuous Tunability of Copper Nanocrystals from Single-Crystalline to Twinned and Stacking Fault-Lined

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Ludovic Emile Frédy Zaza, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Coline Marie Agathe Boulanger, Krishna Kumar, Jari Leemans

Colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) are active materials in different applications, wherein their shape dictates their properties, such as optical or catalytic properties, and, thus, their performance. Hence, learning to tune the NC shape is an important goal in ...

2024

Colloidal Atomic Layer Deposition on Nanocrystals Using Ligand-Modified Precursors

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Ona Segura Lecina, Coline Marie Agathe Boulanger, Philippe Benjamin Green, Mark Adrian Newton, Krishna Kumar, Jari Leemans

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a method to grow thin metal oxide layers on a variety of materials for applications spanning from electronics to catalysis. Extending ALD to colloidally stable nanocrystals promises to combine the benefits of thin metal oxi ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Alloying as a Strategy to Boost the Stability of Copper Nanocatalysts during the Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Reaction

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Kevin Rossi, Valery Okatenko, Dragos-Constantin Stoian, Anastasia Blokhina, Alexander Nicolas Chen, Mark Adrian Newton

2023

Voltage-driven Chemical Reactions Enable the Synthesis of Tunable Liquid Ga – Metal Nanoparticles

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Pascal Alexander Schouwink, Valery Okatenko, Coline Marie Agathe Boulanger, Alexander Nicolas Chen, Krishna Kumar

Nanosized particles of liquid metals are emerging materials which hold promise for applications spanning from microelectronics to catalysis. Yet, the knowledge of their chemical reactivity is largely unknown. Here, we study the reactivity of liquid Ga and ...

2023

Surface Chemistry Dictates the Enhancement of Luminescence and Stability of InP QDs upon c-ALD ZnO Hybrid Shell Growth

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Dragos-Constantin Stoian, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Ona Segura Lecina, Philippe Benjamin Green, Mark Adrian Newton, Jari Leemans

Indium phosphide quantum dots (InP QDs) are a promising example of Restriction of Hazardous Substances directive (RoHS)-compliant light-emitting materials. However, they suffer from low quantum yield and instability upon processing under ambient conditions ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

The spatial distribution of cobalt phthalocyanine and copper nanocubes controls the selectivity towards C-2 products in tandem electrocatalytic CO2 reduction

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Valery Okatenko, Min Wang

The coupling of CO-generating molecular catalysts with copper electrodes in tandem schemes is a promising strategy to boost the formation of multi-carbon products in the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2. While the spatial distribution of the two component ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Copper-Phosphonate Lamella Intermediates Control the Shape of Colloidal Copper Nanocrystals

Raffaella Buonsanti, Valeria Mantella, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst, Dragos-Constantin Stoian, Petru Pasquale Albertini

Understanding the structure and behavior of intermediates in chemical reactions is key to developing greater control over the reaction outcome. This principle is particularly important in the synthesis of metal nanocrystals (NCs), where the reduction, nucl ...

2022

Investigation of Ethylene and Propylene Production from CO2 Reduction over Copper Nanocubes in an MEA-Type Electrolyzer

Raffaella Buonsanti, Valery Okatenko

Previous work carried out in fully liquid environ-ments and at low current densities has demonstrated that highly uniform faceted copper nanocrystals display different selectivity profiles in CO2 reduction compared to polycrystalline copper. As part of ong ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

The native oxide skin of liquid metal Ga nanoparticles prevents their rapid coalescence during electrocatalysis

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Jan Vávra, Laia Castilla Amorós, Valery Okatenko, Dragos-Constantin Stoian

Liquid metals (LMs) have been used in electrochemistry since the 19th century, but it is only recently that they have emerged as electrocatalysts with unique properties, such as inherent resistance to coke-poisoning, which derives from the dynamic nature o ...

2022

Tailoring Morphology and Elemental Distribution of Cu-In Nanocrystals via Galvanic Replacement

Emad Oveisi, Raffaella Buonsanti, Pascal Alexander Schouwink, Laia Castilla Amorós, Valery Okatenko

The compositional and structural diversity of bimetallic nanocrystals (NCs) provides a superior tunability of their physico-chemical properties, making them attractive for a variety of applications, including sensing and catalysis. Nevertheless, the manipu ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Tandem electrocatalytic CO2 reduction with Fe-porphyrins and Cu nanocubes enhances ethylene production

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Min Wang

Copper-based tandem schemes have emerged as promising strategies to promote the formation of multi-carbon products in the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction. In such approaches, the CO-generating component of the tandem catalyst increases the local co ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2022