Prof. Licheng Sun’s group at the Center of Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuels, Westlake University, recently published a research paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The paper is titled “Facet-Engineered Copper Electrocatalysts Enable Sustainable NADH Regeneration with High Efficiency.”
The research elucidated for the first time the regeneration mechanism of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) on heterogeneous electrodes. Based on this theoretical breakthrough, the team innovatively designed and developed grain boundary-rich copper nanowire electrocatalysts dominated by (111) facets, which significantly lowered the formation energy barrier of adsorbed hydrogen (Had) and enabled highly active and selective NADH regeneration. The system achieved a record-high 1,4-NADH production rate of 73.5 µmol h−1 cm−2 while maintaining 84.7% selectivity.
Ph.D. student Shuo Sun, Assistant Researcher Yizhou Wu, and Assistant Researcher Yunxuan Ding from Westlake University are the co-first authors. Licheng Sun, Chair Professor of Chemistry at Westlake University, is the corresponding author.