Publications by 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, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Dragos-Constantin Stoian, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst, Valeria Mantella

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, James Richard Pankhurst, Valery Okatenko, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar

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, James Richard Pankhurst, Pranit Srinivas Iyengar

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, Kevin Rossi, Dragos-Constantin Stoian, Jan Vávra, James Richard Pankhurst, Yannick Thomas Guntern

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

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, Dragos-Constantin Stoian, Laia Castilla Amorós, James Richard Pankhurst

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

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

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

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

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