Recently, Xiao Shang’s paper （In-situ cathodic activation of V-incorporated NixSy nanowires for enhanced hydrogen evolution） was published as cover paper on periodical Nanoscale of Royal Society of Chemistry. She is a Chemical Engineering and Technology PhD candidate in Chenguang Liu’s group which is attached to State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing. Xiao Shang is the first author of the paper. Corresponing authors are associate Prof Bin Dong and Chenguang Liu Prof. The first signatories is China University of Petroleum (East China).
It has been an extermely urgent task to construct mordern energy system with clean and low carbon characteristics when we are facing climate change and energy transformation. So, developing renewable energy and promoting energy transformation is necessary. Electrolyzing water is a new technology to achieve transformation of renewable energy to chemical energy by using renewable energy, such as, solar energy, wind. The key to electrolyze water is designing catalyst to produce hydrogen. Transition metal sulfide will be the first choice, but it is not easy to synthesize controllable and rich in active sites nanoscale catalyst. Xiao Shang designed vanadium sulfide nanowires precusor based on nickel foam. The precusor was activated in alkaline solution by in situ electroactivation on cathode and then construct amorphous hydroxyl oxide film which is rich in active sites on the surface of nickel sulfide vanadium. The design highly improves catalytic activity, At the same time, amorphous hydroxyl oxide film can efficiently improve stability of nickel sulfide vanadium catalyst. The method is mild, green and simple. It is expected to apply it in photoelectric catalysis, energy storage battery, super capacitor and other research field related to energy.
Anonymous reviewers thinks highly of the research achievement. Most of reviewers think the design is novel and probable to apply. In addition, a reviewer considers publicating the paper without change.
Nanoscale periodical is created by Royal Society of Chemistry in 2009. It is related to physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, materials, energy, environment, information technology and interdiscipline research achievements. It has broad impact in science field. Nanoscale is top periodical in science citation index. It’s impact factor is 7.367 in 2016. Published paper in this periodical has high impact in relevant research field.
