School Of Basic And Applied Sciences

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    Unraveling the Role of Orbital Interaction in the Electrochemical HER of the Trimetallic AgAuCu Nanobowl Catalyst
    (American Chemical Society, 2023-03-24T00:00:00) Biswas, Rathindranath; Dastider, Saptarshi Ghosh; Ahmed, Imtiaz; Barua, Sourabh; Mondal, Krishnakanta; Haldar, Krishna Kanta
    Unraveling the origins of the electrocatalytic activity of composite nanomaterials is crucial but inherently challenging. Here, we present a comprehensive investigation of the influence of different orbitals� interaction in the AuAgCu nanobowl model electrocatalyst during the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). According to our theoretical study, AgAuCu exhibits a lower energy barrier than AgAu and AgCu bimetallic systems for the HER, suggesting that the trimetallic AgAuCu system interacts optimally with H*, resulting in the most efficient HER catalyst. As we delve deeper into the HER activity of AgAuCu, it was observed that the presence of Cu allows Au to adsorb the H* intermediate through the hybridization of s orbitals of hydrogen and s, dx2-y2, and dz2 orbitals of Au. Such orbital interaction was not present in the cases of AgAu and AgCu bimetallic systems, and as a result, these bimetallic systems exhibit lower HER activities. � 2023 American Chemical Society.
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    Adsorption and Activation of CO2on Small-Sized Cu-Zr Bimetallic Clusters
    (American Chemical Society, 2021-03-17T00:00:00) Megha; Mondal, Krishnakanta; Ghanty, Tapan K.; Banerjee, Arup
    Adsorption and activation of CO2 is a key step in any chemical reaction, which aims to convert it to other useful chemicals. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that drive the activation process and also search for materials that promote the process. We employ the density functional theory to explore the possibility of using small-sized bimetallic Cu-Zr clusters, Cu4-nZrn, with n = 1-3 for the above-mentioned key step. Our results suggest that after adsorption, a CO2 molecule preferably resides on Zr atoms or at the bridge and triangular faces formed by Zr atoms in bimetallic Cu-Zr clusters accompanied with its high degree of activation. Importantly, maximum activation occurs when CO2 is adsorbed on the CuZr3 cluster. Interestingly, we find that the adsorption energy of CO2 can be tuned by varying the extent of the Zr atom in Cu-Zr clusters. We rationalize the high adsorption of CO2 with the increase in the number of Zr atoms using the d-band center model and the concept of chemical hardness. The strong chemisorption and high activation of CO2 are ascribed to charge migration between Cu-Zr clusters and the CO2 molecule. We find an additional band in the infrared vibrational spectra of CO2 chemisorbed on all of the clusters, which is absent in the case of free CO2. We also observe that the energy barriers for the direct dissociation of the CO2 molecule to CO and O decrease significantly on bimetallic Cu-Zr clusters as compared to that on pure Cu4. In particular, the barrier heights are considerably small for Cu3Zr and CuZr3 clusters. This study demonstrates that Cu3Zr and CuZr3 clusters may serve as good candidates for activation and dissociation of the CO2 molecule. � 2021 American Chemical Society.
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    Bio-assisted Synthesis of Au/Rh Nanostructure Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution and Methanol Oxidation Reactions: Composition Matters!
    (American Chemical Society, 2023-08-11T00:00:00) Biswas, Rathindranath; Dastider, Saptarshi Ghosh; Ahmed, Imtiaz; Biswas, Sayani; Mondal, Krishnakanta; Haldar, Krishna Kanta
    In the field of catalysis, bimetallic nanostructures have attracted much interest. Here, we discuss the effect of Au/Rh bimetallic composition-tuned nanostructure and electrocatalytic activity. A simple bio-assisted technique was used to fabricate multiple Au:Rh nanoplate ratios (25:75, 50:50, and 75:25). XRD and XPS studies show that both Au and Rh phases coexist in a bimetallic nanostructure, and electron microscopy confirms the formation of a triangle-shaped nanoplate. Au0.25Rh0.75 exhibited the maximum catalytic activity and good stability for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with an overpotential of 105 mV at a current density of 10 mA/cm2. On the other hand, Au0.50Rh0.50 exhibits a higher activity for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) compared to the other compositions. Theoretical studies indicate that the electrocatalytic enhancement obtained for both HER and MOR relies on electronic modification effects of the surface, with the overall reaction energy profile being optimized due to Au/Rh d-band mixing. � 2023 American Chemical Society.
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    Interfacial design of gold/silver core-shell nanostars for plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic coupling of 4-aminothiophenol
    (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2021-10-02T00:00:00) Kaur, Gagandeep; Tanwar, Swati; Kaur, Vishaldeep; Biswas, Rathindranath; Saini, Sangeeta; Haldar, Krishna Kanta; Sen, Tapasi
    Chemical reactions under mild conditions mediated by localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of metals have emerged as a functional research field. In the present study, we report an interfacial designing procedure for the fabrication of a class of bimetallic hybrid nanomaterials as a profoundly active photocatalyst for the conversion of para-aminothiophenol (PATP) into 4,4?-dimercaptoazobenzene. For this purpose, core-shell nanostars composed of gold (core) and silver (shell) (Au/Ag NSs) were utilized as both surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate and plasmon driven catalyst under 532 nm laser excitation. Au/Ag NSs with sharp tips display excellent surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) efficiency of PATP. Employing the SERS study, it has been found that PATP rapidly converts into its dimerized product DMAB within few seconds by surface photochemical reaction in the Au-Ag heterojunction of core-shell nanostars. Au/Ag NSs with multiple sharp tips exhibit intense LSPR and highly strong electric fields are created at the tips, which enables the generation of hot electrons responsible for the rapid conversion reaction. Such well-designed interfacial bimetallic nanostars could have potential applications in surface enhanced spectroscopy, biosensing, and photoinduced surface catalysis. This journal is � The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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    Alloyed monolayers of Cu, Ag, Au and Pt in hexagonal phase: A comprehensive first principles study
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2018) Kapoor, Pooja; Kumar, Arun; Sharma, Munish; Kumar, Jagdish; Kumar, Ashok; Ahluwalia, P. K.
    We present density functional theory (DFT) based comprehensive study of two-dimensional (2D) alloyed monolayers of noble metals (AgCu, AgPt, AgAu, AuCu, AuPt and CuPt) in hexagonal phase within numerical atomic orbitals and plane wave basis sets methods. The monolayers considered exhibit positive phonon frequencies suggesting them to be dynamically stable. The Pt containing alloyed monolayers have superior structural stability (binding energy and tensile strength) and exhibit metallic and ferromagnetic character amongst all the alloyed monolayers. Interestingly, alloying of Au monolayer with Cu and Ag show semiconducting behavior whereas alloyed AgCu monolayer posseses Dirac-cone like features at high symmetry points. These distinct features in electronic structures of alloyed 2D monolayers have been captured in STM like set up. An anisotropic behavior has been observed in dielectric spectra for all the considered structures. Tunneling characteristics show NDR region for Pt containing alloyed monolayers. The considered alloyed monolayers may potentially be useful as a building blocks for the applications in nano- and opto-electronics. ? 2017 Elsevier B.V.