Publications related to Strain-relief pattern as guide for the formation of surface-supported bimolecular nanoribbons

The molecular scale mechanism of deposition ice nucleation on silver iodide

Mária Lbadaoui-Darvas, Athanasios Nenes, André Welti

Heterogeneous ice nucleation is a ubiquitous process in the natural and built environment. Deposition ice nucleation, i.e. heterogeneous ice nucleation that - according to the traditional view - occurs in a subsaturated water vapor environment and in the a ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Gas/Surface reactions probed by reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy

Harmina Vejayan

In my thesis, I present an investigation of the dissociation reactions of gas phase molecules on single crystal metal surfaces studied by a molecular beam in combination with Reflection Absorption Infrared Spectroscopy (RAIRS). Two gas/surface systems were ...

EPFL2023

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

Molecular dynamics simulations of the evaporation of hydrated ions from aqueous solution

Philip Robin Loche

Although important for atmospheric processes and gas-phase catalysis, very little is known about the hydration state of ions in the vapor phase. Here we study the evaporation energetics and kinetics of a chloride ion from liquid water by molecular dynamics ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2022

Gold-in-copper at low *CO coverage enables efficient electromethanation of CO2

Michael Graetzel, Pengfei Ou, Xiaoyan Wang, Dan Ren, Yang Li, Jun Li, Ziyun Wang, Yongfeng Xie, Yi Xu, Yiping Wang

The renewable-electricity-powered CO2 electroreduction reaction provides a promising means to store intermittent renewable energy in the form of valuable chemicals and dispatchable fuels. Renewable methane produced using CO2 electroreduction attracts inter ...

Nature Research2021

Infrared Activities of Adsorbed Species on Metal Surfaces: The Puzzle of Adsorbed Methyl (CH3)

Rainer Beck, Harmina Vejayan

Reflection–absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) is widely used to identify molecular adsorbates on metals during surface chemical reactions, but the interpretation of RAIRS data can be difficult with experiment alone. Here, we reveal from first-princip ...

2021

In-core dosimetry for the validation of neutron spectra in the CROCUS reactor

Pavel Frajtag, Andreas Pautz, Vincent Pierre Lamirand, Axel Guy Marie Laureau, Yifeng Jiang

The present article describes the preliminary validation study of simulated in-core and reflector n eutron spectra in preparation of oncoming experimental programs in the zero-power reactor CROCUS at EPFL. For this purpose, a set of activation foils were i ...

E D P SCIENCES2020

Mechanisms of the Heterogeneously Catalyzed Reaction of CO2 Hydrogenation on Transition Metal Surfaces

Kun Zhao

Renewable energy supply and energy storage in a closed materials cycle are the urgent global challenges of the 21st century. Carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrogenation over catalysts is a method to produce synthetic fuels from renewable energy in a CO2 neutral cyc ...

EPFL2020

Non-equilibrium kinetics and trajectory thermodynamics of synthetic molecular pumps

Cristian Pezzato

A major goal in the design of synthetic molecular machines is the creation of pumps that can use the input of energy to transport material from a reservoir at low chemical potential to a different reservoir at higher chemical potential, thereby forming and ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2020

Investigation of the heterogeneously catalysed gas phase CO2 hydrogenation reaction: Development of analysis methods and reaction analysis on pristine metal catalysts

Robin Tobias Andreas Mutschler

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the development of analysis methods that enable an improved investigation of the CO2 hydrogenation reaction such as quantitative mass spectrometry and infrared thermography. Furthermore, the contribution is in the ...

EPFL2019

Prominent role of mesopore surface area and external acid sites for the synthesis of polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (OME) on a hierarchical H-ZSM-5 zeolite

Jeremy Luterbacher, Christophe Jean Baranowski, Oliver Kröcher, Florent Emmanuel Héroguel, Alimohammad Bahmanpour

H-ZSM-5 zeolite has been shown to be an active catalyst for the synthesis of polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (OME). However, we demonstrated – by passivation of the zeolite's external surface – that the reaction rate is limited due to severe internal diff ...

2019

Bimolecular charge transfer reactions at and through the liquid-liquid interface

Grégoire Clément Gschwend

Interfaces are ubiquitous in Nature. Among them, soft interfaces are essential constituents of biological tissues. Indeed, many electrochemical reactions and phenomena take place at these interfaces. In this respect, ITIES are an interesting model to study ...

EPFL2019

Two dimensional diffusion-controlled triplet–triplet annihilation kinetics

Pierre-François Marie Brevet, Hubert Girault, Astrid Johana Olaya Avendano, Grégoire Clément Gschwend, Morgan Kazmierczak

Diffusion controlled chemical reactions are usually observed in three dimensionalmedia. In contrast, planar bimolecular reactions taking place between reagents adsorbed at a soft interface are two-dimensional and therefore cannot be studied within the same ...

2019

Unexpected Indirect Dynamics in Base-Induced Elimination

Eduardo Carrascosa Casado

Base-induced elimination (E2) and bimolecular nucleophilic substitution (S(N)2) are two of the most versatile reactions that are important in preparative organic chemistry. These stereospecific reactions are often found in direct competition with each othe ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2019

Automated Multiscale Approach To Predict Self-Diffusion from a Potential Energy Field

Berend Smit, Senja Dominique Barthel, Amber Kashan Mace

For large-scale screening studies there is a need to estimate the diffusion of gas molecules in nanoporous materials more efficiently than (brute force) molecular dynamics. In particular for systems with low diffusion coefficients molecular dynamics can be ...

2019

Design of Surface-Supported Bio-inspired Networks for CO2 and O2 Activation at Room Temperature

Daniel Eduardo Hurtado Salinas

The structure of a biological system defines its function. Therefore, nature has developed sophisticated systems that catalyze chemical reactions that are vital for life on earth. For instance, the photosynthesis is a biological process that is partially r ...

EPFL2018

In situ Control of the Adsorption Species in CO2 Hydrogenation: Determination of Intermediates and Byproducts

Andreas Züttel, Kun Zhao, Ligang Wang, Marco Calizzi, Emanuele Moioli

CO2 hydrogenation over catalysts is a potentially exciting method to produce fuels while closing the CO2 cycle and mitigating global warming. The mechanism of this process has been controversial due to the difficulty in clearly identifying the species pres ...

2018

Generalized Incremental Model Identification for Chemical Reaction Systems

Dominique Bonvin, Julien Léo Billeter, Adrien Oulevey, Diogo Filipe Mateus Rodrigues

Identification of kinetic models and estimation of kinetic parameters in chemical reaction systems can be done using Incremental Model Identification (IMI). By using IMI, it is possible to separate the effect of the different reactions and thus investigate ...

2017

Global Identification of Kinetic Parameters via the Extent-based Incremental Approach

Dominique Bonvin, Julien Léo Billeter, Diogo Filipe Mateus Rodrigues

The identification of reaction kinetics represents the main challenge in building models for reaction systems. The identification task can be performed via either simultaneous model identification (SMI) or incremental model identification (IMI), the latter ...

2017

Delineating the Mechanism of Ionic Liquids in the Synthesis of Quinazoline-2,4(1H,3H)-dione from 2-Aminobenzonitrile and CO2

Gabor Laurenczy, Paul Joseph Dyson, Shoubhik Das, Sami Manoubi Armand Chamam, Martin Hulla

Ionic liquids (ILs) are versatile solvents and catalysts for the synthesis of quinazoline-2,4-dione from 2-aminobenzonitrile and CO2. However, the role of the IL in this reaction is poorly understood. Consequently, we investigated this reaction and showed ...

Wiley-Blackwell2017