Mr ZHAI Yanjie, a PhD student from PolyU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, received the Most Popular Cover Award as the first author at the 2023 eScience Summit Forum (New Energy Youth Session) held in Mainland China in April for a paper titled "Phase engineering of metal nanocatalysts for electrochemical CO₂ reduction." Prof. ZHANG Xiao, Assistant Professor from the same department, was Mr ZHAI’s supervisor and a corresponding author of the paper.

The paper summarises the most recent developments in the phase engineering of metal nanocatalysts for the electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO₂RR). It introduces different crystal phases of metal nanocatalysts used in CO₂RR and discusses various synthetic strategies for unconventional phases of metal nanocatalysts. This review also presents detailed discussions about metal nanocatalysts with conventional and unconventional phases, including amorphous phases. Moreover, it covers challenges, such as the difficulty of producing metal nanocatalysts with rationally designed phases at commercial scales and perspectives in the phase engineering of nanomaterials. 

The strategy of phase engineering of nanomaterials motivates innovations in the rational design and synthesis of novel nanocatalysts, especially with unconventional phases, as well as the future development of metal-based systems for CO₂RR on a commercial scale.

The forum was co-hosted by the Editorial Board of eScience and Nankai District Haihe Carbon Neutrality Research Institute in Mainland China. The event in 2023, with the theme “New Energy Assists Chinese Modernization”, attracted over 800 teaching, scientific research, and engineering and technical staff members, as well as students from universities, scientific research institutes and related enterprises and public institutions across the country. The forum featured 178 invited talks and 115 posters. There were 18 positions available for the Outstanding Contribution Youth Award and three for the Most Popular Cover Award.

Zhai, Y., Han, P., Yun, Q., Ge, Y., Zhang, X., Chen, Y., & Zhang, H. (2022). Phase engineering of metal nanocatalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction. eScience, 2(5), 467-485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esci.2022.09.002