Nanoisozymes: Crystal‐Facet‐Dependent Enzyme‐Mimetic Activity of V2O5 Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials with enzyme‐like activity (nanozymes) attract significant interest owing to their applications in biomedical research. Particularly, redox nanozymes that exhibit glutathione peroxidase (GPx)‐like activity play important roles in cellular signaling by controlling the hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) level. Herein we report, for the first time, that the redox properties and GPx‐like activity of V₂O₅ nanozyme depends not only on the size and morphology, but also on the crystal facets exposed on the surface within the same crystal system of the nanomaterials. These results suggest that the surface of the nanomaterials can be engineered to fine‐tune their redox properties to act as “nanoisozymes” for specific biological applications.     

Exohedral Complexation of B40, C60 and Arenes with Transition Metals: A Comparative DFT Study

Holes are inevitable in borospherenes. The surface topography of B₄₀ and its π MOs isolobal to benzene allow for better η⁷‐, η⁶‐ and η³‐ exohedral complexation with transition metal fragments than it is possible with C₆₀ and arenes. η⁷‐complexes of B₄₀ is lower in energy than the η⁶‐complexes for metal fragments such as C₅H₅Mn, C₄H₄Fe, and C₃H₃Co that have relatively diffuse frontier orbitals. The fragment C₆H₆Cr prefers η⁶‐coordination. Near‐isodesmic equations based on density functional theory computations of the transition metal complexes of B₄₀, C₆₀ and C₆H₆ support these anticipations. Transition metal complexation increases the stability of B₄₀.     

Activity And Stability of Single- And Di-Atom Catalysts for the O2 Reduction Reaction

Efficient and inexpensive catalysts for the O₂ reduction reaction (ORR) are needed for the advancement of renewable energy technologies. In this study, we designed a computational catalyst-screening method to identify single and di-atom metal dopants from first-row transition elements supported on defect-containing nitrogenated graphene surfaces for the ORR. Based on formation-energy calculations and micro-kinetic modelling of reaction pathways using intermediate binding free energies, we have identified four potentially interesting single-atom catalysts (SACs) and fifteen di-atom catalysts (DACs) with relatively high estimated catalytic activity at 0.8 V vs RHE. Among the best SACs, MnNC shows high stability in both acidic and alkaline media according to our model. For the DACs, we found four possible candidates, MnMn, FeFe, CoCo, and MnNi doped on quad-atom vacancy sites having considerable stability over a wide pH range. The remaining SACs and DACs with high activity are either less stable or show a stability region at an alkaline pH.