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Crystals
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Advanced Catalytic Materials in Energy and Environment
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Advanced Catalytic Materials in Energy and Environment

A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials for Energy Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 May 2026 | Viewed by 1046

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Wanliang Yang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Interests: nanomaterial design and behavior for energy conversion and environmental treatment; photocatalysis/electrocatalysis; heterogeneous catalysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advanced catalytic materials are essential to modern energy and environmental technologies, driving key reactions such as water splitting, CO2 reduction, N2 fixation, and pollutant degradation. Recent breakthroughs have demonstrated that their catalytic performance is governed not only via chemical composition but also by their crystalline features, including facet orientation, defect engineering, strain, and phase purity, making crystallographic investigation indispensable for rational design.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, short communications, and review papers that connect crystal–structure characterization with catalytic function.  Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: 

  • Single-crystal or powder X-ray structural analysis of new heterogeneous catalysts;
  • Crystal-facet-, defect-, or strain-dependent activity/selectivity in energy reactions (ORR, OER, HER, CO2RR, NRR, etc.);
  • In situ/operando crystallographic studies capturing structural evolution under catalytic conditions;
  • Crystalline perovskites, MOFs, COFs, spinels, and layered double hydroxides for photocatalysis and electrocatalysis;
  • Green synthesis, crystal growth mechanisms, and morphological control of environmental catalysts;
  • Structure–property correlations revealed via combined XRD, TEM, SAED, and PDF analyses;
  • Single-atom catalysts on energy-related reactions, their preparation method, characterization, and performance evaluation.

Dr. Wanliang Yang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • crystalline catalysts
  • crystal facet
  • defect engineering
  • in situ XRD
  • CO2 reduction
  • water splitting
  • photocatalysis
  • electrocatalysis
  • perovskite
  • MOF

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1324 KB  
Article
Ethanolic Transesterification with Methyl Acetate Catalyzed by SBA-15 Functionalized with Imidazolium–Sulfonic Groups
by Fernando Gazola, Iago Zapelini and José Assaf
Crystals 2026, 16(4), 258; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst16040258 - 11 Apr 2026
Viewed by 180
Abstract
The global demand for biodiesel production is steadily increasing. Conventional homogeneous basic catalysts, while widely used in the industry, face significant drawbacks, such as the requirement for high-quality feedstock, excessive waste generation, and multiple purification steps. In this study, an acidic silane (IM-CPTMS-BS-H [...] Read more.
The global demand for biodiesel production is steadily increasing. Conventional homogeneous basic catalysts, while widely used in the industry, face significant drawbacks, such as the requirement for high-quality feedstock, excessive waste generation, and multiple purification steps. In this study, an acidic silane (IM-CPTMS-BS-H2SO4) containing imidazolium and sulfonic groups was synthesized. Heterogeneous catalysts were then prepared by anchoring varying proportions of the silane onto SBA-15 mesoporous solids. These materials were characterized by FTIR, 13C and 29Si NMR, TGA, XRD, CHNS and acidity measurements. The catalysts were evaluated in the transesterification of methyl acetate with ethanol, with increasing catalytic conversions with the amount of grafted IM-CPTMS-BS-H2SO4. Furthermore, increasing the catalyst loading (from 2% to 5% wt.) and the reaction temperature (from 50 °C to 65 °C) led to higher methyl acetate conversion rates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Catalytic Materials in Energy and Environment)
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10 pages, 2311 KB  
Article
CVD-Grown Carbon Nanofibers on Knitted Carbon Fabric for Enhanced Supercapacitor Performance
by Xiaojing Jia, Jiangsan Wang and Jing Dang
Crystals 2025, 15(12), 1049; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst15121049 - 11 Dec 2025
Viewed by 589
Abstract
The escalating demand for high-performance energy storage devices has driven extensive research into flexible electrode materials for supercapacitors. Integrating structured carbon nanomaterials with flexible substrates to construct binder-free electrode architectures represents a promising strategy for improving supercapacitor capacitance and rate capability. However, achieving [...] Read more.
The escalating demand for high-performance energy storage devices has driven extensive research into flexible electrode materials for supercapacitors. Integrating structured carbon nanomaterials with flexible substrates to construct binder-free electrode architectures represents a promising strategy for improving supercapacitor capacitance and rate capability. However, achieving stable, binder-free integration of structure-controlled nanostructured carbon materials with flexible substrates remains a critical challenge. In this study, we report a direct synthesis approach for one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanofibers (CNFs) on commercial flexible carbon fabric (CF) via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The resulting CNFs exhibit two typical average diameters—approximately 25 nm and 50 nm—depending on the growth temperature, with both displaying highly graphitized structures. Electrochemical characterization of the CNFs/CF composites in 1 M H2SO4 electrolyte revealed typical electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) behavior. Notably, the 25 nm-CNFs/CF electrode achieves a high specific capacitance of 87.5 F/g, significantly outperforming the 50 nm-CNFs/CF electrode, which reaches 50.2 F/g. Compared with previously reported carbon nanotube CNTs/CF electrodes, the 25 nm-CNFs/CF electrode exhibits superior capacitance and lower resistance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Catalytic Materials in Energy and Environment)
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