Permanent Nanobubbles in Water: Liquefied Hollow Carbon Spheres Break the Limiting Diffusion Current of Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Debabrata Moitra, Arvind Ganesan, Fan Wang, Liqi Qiu, Kevin Siniard, Zhenzhen Yang, Shannon M. Mahurin, Lilin He, Kai Li, Hongjun Liu, De En Jiang, Tao Wang, Sheng Dai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Porous liquids have traditionally been designed with sterically hindered solvents. Alternatively, recent efforts rely on dispersing microporous frameworks in simpler solvents like water. Here we report a unique strategy to construct macroporous water by selectively incorporating hydrophilicity on the surfaces of hydrophobic hollow carbon spheres (HCS). Specifically, we show that the stable dispersion surface ionized HCS in water while retaining the inherent porosity. The electrocatalytic conversion of small gas molecules in aqueous electrolytes is limited by the concentration and diffusion rates of gas molecules in water. In this case, macroporous water exhibited 6 times gas uptake compared to nonporous (pure) water. By leveraging the high gas capacity and enhanced diffusion kinetics, the limiting diffusion current of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in macroporous water is 2 times that in nonporous water, offering promising prospects for sustainable energy conversion technologies.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of the American Chemical Society
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 2025

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