Congratulations to Dr. Zikkawas Pasom, postdoctoral researcher from the School of Energy Science and Engineering (ESE) under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chularat Wattanakit and Prof. Alexander Kuhn, for the recent article in Advance Science.
Topic: Chiral-Encoded Pt-Ir Surfaces as Apparent Spin Filter for Enhanced Oxygen Reduction Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) is a promising effect for enhancing the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), an essential process in clean energy technologies. Here, we study chiral-encoded mesoporous Pt-Ir alloys, bearing high selectivity when used for the analysis, separation, and synthesis of enantiomers. We demonstrate a very substantial difference in ORR activity for Pt-Ir electrodes imprinted with molecules of opposite handedness. One enantiomorph catalyzes oxygen reduction, whereas its mirror image surprisingly acts as an inhibitor. This very unusual asymmetric reactivity is due to an interplay between the CISS effect and the adsorption of oxygen on the metal surface, leading to a break of symmetry in terms of spin interactions. Our findings open up promising perspectives for designing CISS-based ORR catalysts, advancing the development of clean energy technologies.
This research was financially supported by the Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Thailand. Additional acknowledges were funding through a cost-sharing research grant from the National Research Council of Thailand and Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (N42A660307), a grant from the Program Management Unit for Human Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation (grant number: B41G680026), and a research award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Unit (Awarded R&D Grant Number. FA2386-23-1–4015), French Embassy in Thailand, and CNRS via the IRP project ChiraChem and the French Academy of Sciences.
Visit this article: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.75175