Publications related to RF-plasma pretreatment of surfaces leading to TiO2 coatings with improved optical absorption and OH-radical production

Plasmonic Nanostructures for Photocatalysis: Material, Photonic and Electronic Effects

Plasmonic photochemistry has a large potential to replace energy-intensive chemical processes with low-temperature, low-pressure light-driven chemical reactions. Plasmonic nanostructures have emerged as promising photocatalysts with exceptional and tunable ...

EPFL2024

Resolving bacterial cell biology: from replisome dynamics to cell wall synthesis

Chen Zhang

Bacteria are ubiquitous single cellular organisms. Compared to eukaryotic cells, bacteria have two unique characteristics: the membrane-less nucleoid and the cell wall built of peptidoglycan (PG). In most bacteria, a single circular chromosome is compacted ...

EPFL2024

Hybrid organic/metal-oxide shells on semiconductor nanocrystals via colloidal atomic layer deposition

Ona Segura Lecina

The escalating energy demand and the imperative necessity to reduce the carbon footprint require transformative approaches to energy conversion. Materials chemistry plays a pivotal role in addressing these global challenges by developing novel materials fo ...

EPFL2024

Understanding the role of surface oxygen-containing functional groups on carbon-supported cobalt catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction

Thi Ha My Pham, Andreas Züttel, Youngdon Ko, Kangning Zhao, Liping Zhong, Manhui Wei

Supported Co-based catalysts exhibit promising catalytic activities in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) during alkaline water electrolysis. Surface functionalization of the support modulates the dispersion of the catalysts and their interaction with the ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2023

Separable Brønsted acidic imidazolium salts for polysaccharide hydrolysis in water

Kedar Ashok Abhyankar

The current reliance on limited petrochemical resources and the resulting ecological outcomes have made the exploration of alternative chemical and energy feedstocks invaluable. As such, the development of sustainable processes with a less harmful total en ...

EPFL2023

Improving time-resolution and sensitivity of in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of a powder catalyst by modulated excitation

Oliver Kröcher, Davide Ferri, Filippo Buttignol

Ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (APXPS) is a powerful tool to characterize the surface structure of heterogeneous catalysts in situ. In order to improve the time resolution and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of photoemission spectra, we ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Detecting the metabolism of individual yeast mutant strain cells when aged, stressed or treated with antioxidants with diamond magnetometry

Mayeul Sylvain Chipaux

Free radicals play a key role in the ageing process. However, free radicals are small, reactive and short lived and thus challenging to measure. We utilize a new technique called diamond magnetometry for this pur-pose. We make use of nitrogen vacancy cente ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2023

Modulating the Surface Properties of Lithium Niobate Nanoparticles by Multifunctional Coatings Using Water-in-Oil Microemulsions

Sandrine Gerber, Adrian Stefan Gheata, Manon Inès Noëlla Wittwer, Alessandra Spada

Inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as promising tools in biomedical applications, owing to their inherent physicochemical properties and their ease of functionalization. In all potential applications, the surface functionalization strategy is a key ...

2023

Hypervalent Iodine: New Reagents and Functionalization of Peptides

Eliott Hugo Joran Le Du

Alkynes are found in a multitude of natural or synthetic bioactive compounds. In addition to the capacity of these chemical motifs to impact the physicochemical properties of a molecule of interest, the well-established reactivity of alkynes makes them ide ...

EPFL2023

Impact of chlorination and ozonation of dissolved organic matter on its photo-induced production of long-lived photooxidants and excited triplet states

Silvio Canonica, Urs von Gunten, Stephanie Christa Remke, Joanna Maria Houska

Recent studies suggested that long-lived photooxidants (LLPO), which are reactive intermediates formed during irradiation of dissolved organic matter (DOM), may consist of phenoxyl radicals derived from phenolic moieties of the DOM. Besides the well-studie ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Influence of aerosol acidity and organic ligands on transition metal solubility and oxidative potential of fine particulate matter in urban environments

Gerhard Lammel, Athanasios Nenes

The adverse health effects of air pollution around the world have been associated with the inhalation of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Such outcomes are thought to be related to the induction of oxidative stress due to the excess formation of reactive o ...

Elsevier2023

Electron probing of oxygen-evolving oxide catalysts

Tzu-Hsien Shen

Water splitting is one of the cleanest ways to store energy. The production of hydrogen and oxygen gases can be utilized in fuel cells to generate electricity, power, and heat. In the water splitting process, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), taking pla ...

EPFL2022

Hydro-processing of biomass using novel metal-organic framework (MOF)/polymer composite catalysts

Vikram Vinayak Karve

Generating value, in the form of functional chemicals, from biomass is a critical need of today. It is expected that replacing petroleum with biomass as the source of many commodity and fine chemicals can lead the transition away from a fossil-fuel based e ...

EPFL2022

Molecular insights into the electrical double layer of colloidal oxide particles obtained through second harmonic scattering

Marie Bischoff

Photocatalytic applications play an essential role in the search for alternative energy sources and environmental decontamination techniques. It is of fundamental interest to understand on a molecular level the aqueous solid/liquid interface, where photoca ...

EPFL2022

Flowing Gas Experiments Reveal Mechanistic Details of Interfacial Reactions on a Molecular Level at Knudsen Flow Conditions

Michel Rossi, Christian Ludwig, Riccardo Iannarelli

Knudsen flow experiments and its interpretation in terms of adsorption/desorption kinetics as well as quantitative uptake on substrates of interest is presented together with the description of critical design parameters of the Knudsen Flow Reactor (KFR). ...

2022

Fluorescent D-Amino Acids for Super-resolution Microscopy of the Bacterial Cell Wall

Luc Reymond, Suliana Manley, Ophélie Rutschmann, Juliette Griffie, Chen Zhang, Willi Leopold Stepp, Jiangtao Qiao, Faustine Ambroisine Charline Ryckebusch

Fluorescent D-amino acids (FDAAs) have previ-ously been developed to enable in situ highlighting of locations of bacterial cell wall growth. Most bacterial cells lie at the edge of the diffraction limit of visible light; thus, resolving the precise details ...

2022

Extraction and controlled functionalization of lignin for materials applications

Stefania Bertella

Lignin is a renewable aromatic polymer that due to its abundance and unique chemical structure is a promising candidate to replace aromatic materials that are currently sourced from fossil oil. The same structure of lignin poses however drawbacks for its v ...

EPFL2022

Copper-catalyzed transformations of carboradicals generated by electrochemical and photochemical methods: oxidative amination and polyfluoroarylation

Xiangli Yi

Organic radicals are highly active species that can undergo various transformations. Electrochemistry and photochemistry are efficient methods for the generation of these species of high energy, through single electron transfer processes under mild conditi ...

EPFL2021

New Strategies for the Functionalization of Alkenes Exploiting Tethering Chemistry and Ring Strain

Bastian Antoine Rodolphe Claude Muriel

Amino alcohols, cyclopropanes and nitriles are privileged structural motifs found in the scaffold of natural products and bioactive compounds. In addition, they are versatile building blocks in organic chemistry. The development of new and increasingly eff ...

EPFL2021

Optical properties and photochemical production of hydroxyl radical and singlet oxygen after ozonation of dissolved organic matter

Frank Jonathan Leresche, Urs von Gunten

This study focuses on the effects of ozonation on the optical and photochemical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Upon ozonation, a decrease in light absorption properties of DOM was observed concomitantly with a large increase in singlet oxyge ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2021