Graphene-based catalytic mats for Belousov Zhabotinsky reaction

Use of hybrid materials that have morphological features at various length scales has opened up new avenues to design multi-functional materials. Here, we synthesize graphene-based catalytic mats and harness their unique properties to tune the kinetics of self-oscillating BZ reactions. In particular, we create catalytic mats containing 0D-2D heterostructures by decorating Ce, Ru, Ag, and Au nanoparticles (NPs) onto the graphene sheet and subsequently, use these nanocomposites to catalyze the BZ reaction. The NPs attached on the graphene function as spacers by increasing the interlayer distance to several nanometers and thus, prevent the stacking of individual graphene sheets. Moreover, the presence of NPs on highly conductive graphene sheets provides enhanced access to active catalytic sites and reveals a multi-fold increase in the number of chemical oscillations frequency in BZ reactions. We also validate the kinetic model of the BZ reaction with our experimental results and identify key parameters to model the reaction kinetics for our BZ system. We expect that our findings will offer a novel approach to design synthetic smart materials with tunable dynamic behavior.