Publications de James Richard Pankhurst

Modulating the Reactivity of Liquid Ga Nanoparticle Inks by Modifying Their Surface Chemistry

Raffaella Buonsanti, Laia Castilla Amorós, James Richard Pankhurst, Tzu-Chin Chang Chien

Micro- and nanosized particles of liquid metals, particularly Ga-based alloys, are attracting increasing attention for applications in several fields. The surface functionalization of Ga-based nanoparticles (NPs) with organic ligands renders easily process ...

2022

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

Copper Nanocrystal Morphology Determines the Viability of Molecular Surface Functionalization in Tuning Electrocatalytic Behavior in CO2 Reduction

Raffaella Buonsanti, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar, James Richard Pankhurst, Valery Okatenko

Molecular surface functionalization of metallic catalysts is emerging as an ever-developing approach to tuning their catalytic performance. Here, we report the synthesis of hybrid catalysts comprising copper nanocrystals (CuNCs) and an imidazolium ligand f ...

2021

Theory-Guided Enhancement of CO2 Reduction to Ethanol on Ag-Cu Tandem Catalysts via Particle-Size Effects

Raffaella Buonsanti, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar, James Richard Pankhurst

In the CO2 reduction reaction, the design of electrocatalysts that selectively promote alcohols over hydrocarbons (e.g., ethanol over ethylene) hinges on the understanding of the pathways and specific sites that form alcohols. Herein, theoretical considera ...

2021

Elucidating the structure-dependent selectivity of CuZn towards methane and ethanol in CO2 electroreduction using tailored Cu/ZnO precatalysts

Raffaella Buonsanti, Seyedehbehnaz Varandili, Yannick Thomas Guntern, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst, Kevin Rossi, Dragos-Constantin Stoian

Understanding the catalyst compositional and structural features that control selectivity is of uttermost importance to target desired products in chemical reactions. In this joint experimental-computational work, we leverage tailored Cu/ZnO precatalysts a ...

2021

Colloidal Nanocrystals as Electrocatalysts with Tunable Activity and Selectivity

Raffaella Buonsanti, Seyedehbehnaz Varandili, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst, Valery Okatenko, Cedric David Koolen, Dragos-Constantin Stoian

Correlating the catalyst activity, selectivity, and stability with its structure and composition is of the utmost importance in advancing the knowledge of heterogeneous electrocatalytic processes for chemical energy conversion. Well-defined colloidal nanoc ...

2021

Exploring the Chemical Reactivity of Gallium Liquid Metal Nanoparticles in Galvanic Replacement

Raffaella Buonsanti, Seyedehbehnaz Varandili, Laia Castilla Amorós, James Richard Pankhurst, Dragos-Constantin Stoian

Micron/nanosized particles of liquid metals possess intriguing properties and are gaining popularity for applications in various research fields. Nevertheless, the knowledge of their chemistry is still very limited compared to that of other classes of mate ...

2020

Polymer Lamellae as Reaction Intermediates in the Formation of Copper Nanospheres as Evidenced by In Situ X-ray Studies

Chethana Janardhana Gadiyar, Kilian Frank, Raffaella Buonsanti, Valeria Mantella, Michal Stanislaw Strach, James Richard Pankhurst, Dragos-Constantin Stoian

The classical nucleation theory (CNT) is the most common theoretical framework used to explain particle formation. However, nucleation is a complex process with reaction pathways which are often not covered by the CNT. Herein, we study the formation mechan ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2020

Colloidal Synthesis of Cu-M-S (M = V, Cr, Mn) Nanocrystals by Tuning the Copper Precursor Reactivity

Raffaella Buonsanti, Seyedehbehnaz Varandili, Valeria Mantella, James Richard Pankhurst

New ternary and higher order inorganic materials are needed for a large variety of applications, yet their synthesis still represents a chemistry challenge. Herein, we focus on the synthesis of Cu-M-S nanocrystals (where M = V, Cr, Mn) via a wet-chemistry ...

2020

Metal-ligand bond strength determines the fate of organic ligands on the catalyst surface during the electrochemical CO(2)reduction reaction

Mounir Driss Mensi, Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar, James Richard Pankhurst

Colloidally synthesised nanocrystals (NCs) are increasingly utilised as catalysts to drive both thermal and electrocatalytic reactions. Their well-defined size and shape, controlled by organic ligands, are ideal to identify the parameters relevant to the a ...

2020

Ligand-mediated formation of Cu/metal oxide hybrid nanocrystals with tunable number of interfaces

Raffaella Buonsanti, Seyedehbehnaz Varandili, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst, Dragos-Constantin Stoian

Combining domains of different chemical nature within the same hybrid material through the formation of heterojunctions provides the opportunity to exploit the properties of each individual component within the same nano-object; furthermore, new synergisti ...

2020

Insights into Reaction Intermediates to Predict Synthetic Pathways for Shape-Controlled Metal Nanocrystals

Anne-Clémence Corminboeuf, Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Valeria Mantella, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar, Michal Stanislaw Strach, James Richard Pankhurst, Shubhajit Das

Understanding nucleation phenomena is crucial across all branches of physical and natural sciences. Colloidal nanocrystals are among the most versatile and tunable synthetic nanomaterials. While huge steps have been made in their synthetic development, syn ...

2019

Molecular tunability of surface-functionalized metal nanocrystals for selective electrochemical CO2 reduction

Mounir Driss Mensi, Raffaella Buonsanti, Yannick Thomas Guntern, James Richard Pankhurst

Organic ligands are used in homogeneous catalysis to tune the metal center reactivity; in contrast, clean surfaces are usually preferred in heterogeneous catalysis. Herein, we demonstrate the potential of a molecular chemistry approach to develop efficient ...

2019

Nanocrystal/Metal–Organic Framework Hybrids as Electrocatalytic Platforms for CO2 Conversion

Mounir Driss Mensi, Raffaella Buonsanti, Pascal Alexander Schouwink, Valeria Mantella, Yannick Thomas Guntern, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst

The tunable chemistry linked to the organic/inorganic components in colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) offers a rich playground to advance the fundamental understanding of materials design for various applications. Herein, we ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2019