EDITORIAL pubs.acs.org/JPCL
Material Science by Design. Chemical and Energy Conversion Research in the New Decade covered in the Perspectives will continue to provide the latest developments in emerging areas.
As we enter a new decade, it is imperative that we develop new ways to generate clean energy and design strategies to improve the efficiency of chemical conversion processes. Physical chemistry will continue to play a pivotal role in providing fundamental understanding of catalytic and energy conversion processes. A recent virtual issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry focused on nanotechnology opportunities for the development of next-generation solar cells.1 The Perspectives in this issue of JPC Letters focus on the emerging role of material science in tailoring the properties of catalysts and organic semiconductors.2,3
Prashant Kamat Deputy Editor University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
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As we enter a new decade, it is imperative that we develop new ways to generate clean energy and design strategies to improve the efficiency of chemical conversion processes.
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The Perspective by Francisco Zaera2 focuses on new design strategies for catalyst development. Heterogeneous catalysis has played a major role since the beginning of the last century and is an integral part of the development of chemical processes of industrial relevance. The availability of new analytical tools and surface science techniques during recent years has further strengthened our understanding of molecular-level catalytic behavior. Soon, economic and geopolitical priorities will compel us to look toward catalyst development with naturally abundant minerals. Zaera's Perspective discusses strategies to develop catalytically active sites with well-defined size and shape using recent advances in nanotechnology. In the same issue, there is a Letter by Zhou et al.4 which shows the usefulness of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) in probing the growth and sintering effects of Au-Pt bimetallic catalysts on ceria. The focus of the physical chemistry Perspective by Kaake, Barbara, and Zhu3 is on organic and polymeric semiconductors. These researchers discuss in detail the electronic energy landscape of organic and polymeric semiconductors. As organic semiconductors continue to dominate the development of new organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), and photovoltaic devices (OPVs), better understanding of the intrinsic properties and structural motifs becomes increasingly important. The structure-properties relationship of polymer solar cells has been discussed by Camaioni and coworkers in a recent Feature article.5 We hope the topics
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Kamat, P. V.; Schatz, G. Nanotechnology for Next Generation Solar Cells. J. Phys. Chem. C 2009, 113, 15473–15475. Zaera, F. The New Materials Science of Catalysis: Toward Controlling Selectivity by Designing the Structure of the Active Site. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2010, 1, 621–627. Kaake, L. G.; Barbara, P. F.; Zhu, X. Y. Intrinsic Charge Trapping in Organic and Polymeric Semiconductors: A Physical Chemistry Perspective. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2010, 1, 628–635. Zhou, Y.; Zhou, J. Growth and Sintering of Au-Pt Nanoparticles on Oxidized and Reduced CeOx(111) Thin Films by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2010, 1, 609–615. Po, R.; Maggini, M.; Camaioni, N. Polymer Solar Cells: Recent Approaches and Achievements. J. Phys. Chem. C 2009, 114, 695–706.
Received Date: January 13, 2010 Accepted Date: January 13, 2010 Published on Web Date: February 04, 2010
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DOI: 10.1021/jz100044n |J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2010, 1, 673–673
