Huiyuan Zhu

About

Huiyuan Zhu is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2009 and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Brown University in 2014. His research group focuses on developing new synthetic strategies for well-defined nanocrystals and two-dimensional (2D) materials with atomically precise surfaces and interfaces. The aim is to understand how atomic structure influences catalyst performance and to utilize this knowledge to design optimized catalysts for energy conversion and chemical transformation processes. His research specifically addresses fundamental questions in catalysis, including identifying active sites and their evolution under reaction conditions, steering reaction pathways toward desirable products by modulating active sites and their environments, and overcoming adsorption-energy scaling relations. His work has implications for electrochemical CO2 conversion, sustainable nitrogen cycling, and heterogeneous thermocatalytic reactions such as acetylene semi-hydrogenation. Dr. Zhu's contributions include advancing the understanding of catalytic processes and developing materials for sustainable energy and chemical production.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Chemical engineering
• Nanotechnology
• Chemistry
• Inorganic chemistry

Selected publications

• Harnessing strong metal–support interactions via a reverse route

  Nature Communications · 2020-06-16 · 176 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Engineering strong metal–support interactions (SMSI) is an effective strategy for tuning structures and performances of supported metal catalysts but induces poor exposure of active sites. Here, we demonstrate a strong metal–support interaction via a reverse route (SMSIR) by starting from the final morphology of SMSI (fully-encapsulated core–shell structure) to obtain the intermediate state with desirable exposure of metal sites. Using core–shell nanoparticles (NPs) as a building block,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Boosting electrosynthesis of ammonia on surface-engineered MXene Ti3C2

  Nano Energy · 2020-03-10 · 147 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Atomic Layers of B2 CuPd on Cu Nanocubes as Catalysts for Selective Hydrogenation

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023-08-31 · 74 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The search for highly active and selective catalysts with high precious metal atom utilization efficiency has attracted increasing interest in both the fundamental synthesis of materials and important industrial reactions. Here, we report the synthesis of Pd–Cu nanocubes with a Cu core and an ordered B2 intermetallic CuPd shell with controllable atomic layers on the surface (denoted as Cu/B2 CuPd), which can efficiently and robustly catalyze the selective hydrogenation of acetylene (C2H2) to eth…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Precisely modulate interfacial Bi-O bridge bond in Co-TCPP/Bi3O4Br to trigger long-lasting charge separation for boosting CO2 photoreduction

  Chemical Engineering Journal · 2023-03-30 · 54 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Electrifying Energy and Chemical Transformations with Single-Atom Alloy Nanoparticle Catalysts

  ACS Catalysis · 2024-04-08 · 19 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Single-atom alloys (SAAs) have attracted considerable attention as promising electrocatalysts in reactions central to energy conversion and chemical transformation. In contrast to monometallic nanocrystals and metal alloys, SAAs possess unique and intriguing physicochemical properties, positioning them as ideal model systems for studying structure-property relationships. However, the field is still in its early stages. In this Perspective, we first review and summarize rational synthesis methods…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CAS: Cooperative Site and Electrolyte Design for Optimizing Interfacial Electrokinetics

  NSF · $515k · 2021–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Shouheng Sun

  Brown University

  88 shared

• Sen Zhang

  66 shared

• Sheng Dai

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  64 shared

• Liheng Wu

  National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing

  29 shared

• Qing Li

  University of Science and Technology of China

  28 shared

• Pengfei Zhang

  Shaanxi University of Science and Technology

  27 shared

• Peiwen Wu

  Jiangsu University

  26 shared

• Adriana Mendoza‐Garcia

  Agency for Science, Technology and Research

  22 shared

Education

• PhD, Chemistry

  Brown University

  2014

Similar researchers at University of Virginia

• Jarrod Martoh-101
• Lin Puh-75