WEIXUAN NIE was born in the city of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. Weixuan obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from Nanjing University, P.R. China. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S. in 2021, where he worked with Prof. Charles C. L. McCrory to design novel molecular catalysts for electrochemical CO₂ reduction. From 2021 to 2023, He works as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Jonas C. Peters and Prof. Theodor Agapie at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as part of the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), an Energy Innovation Hub of the U.S. Department of Energy. His research focuses on (photo)electrochemical CO₂ reduction to value-added liquid C_≥2 products by solid-state catalyst systems. He has received ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award (2022), Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad (2021), Nanjing University Education Foundation (in U.S.) (NJUEF) Scholarship (2020), etc. Dr. Weixuan Nie will join the School of Engineering, Westlake University in winter of 2023 and become an Assistant Professor and the PI of “Electrocatalytic CO₂ Conversion” Laboratory.

The research in the Nie Lab focuses on designing and modulating efficient electrochemical CO₂ reduction (CO₂R) systems to address industrially relevant scientific questions. In particular, for two main categories of the CO₂R catalysts—molecular catalysts and solid-state catalysts, the Nie Lab aims at solving the following bottleneck issues for each category:

Research direction 1 (for molecular catalysts):

a) How to break the molecular scaling relationship—increased activity is usually achieved at the cost of high overpotentials, which hinders synergetic optimization of “catalysis yield” and “energy input” for industrial CO₂R processes.

b) Although molecular catalysts show better selectivity of the CO₂R to a certain single product (CO or HCOOH) compared to the solid-state catalysts, there are rare examples of free-standing molecular catalysts that can reduce CO₂ to highly reduced products by beyond two electrons (e.g. CH₄, CH₃OH, C₂H₄, C₂H₅OH, etc.). The goal of this direction is to explore novel molecular designs to achieve CO₂R to >2 electron-reduced products with high selectivity.

Research direction 2 (for solid-state catalysts):

a) Improve the utilization efficiency of CO₂ reagent gas by efficient CO₂R in acidic electrolytes where the CO₃^2- formation in neutral/basic electrolytes is circumvented.

b) Explore effective operating strategies and catalytic material designs to achieve efficient CO₂R by directly using flue gas (~4% O₂ and ~20% CO₂balanced with N₂) to cut off industrial CO₂ capture and purification processes

At Westlake

1. Yingshuo Liu, Shuaishuai Lyu, Fuli Wen, Weixuan Nie* and Shuqing Wang*, “Polymer-encapsulated metal complex catalysts: An emerging and efficient platform for electrochemical CO2 reduction”, Journal of Materials Science & Technology, 2024, 172, 33-50. (*: Co-Corresponding Author)

Prior to Westlake

17. Weixuan Nie†, Annette E. Boehme†, Madeline H. Hicks, Harry A. Atwater*, Theodor Agapie* and Jonas C. Peters*, “Promoting Electrochemical CO2 Reduction in Acidic Electrolytes Unnecessarily Relies on High Concentrations of Alkali Cations”, 2024, submitted. (†: Co-First Author)

16. Weixuan Nie, Madeline H. Hicks, Theodor Agapie* and Jonas C. Peters*, “Mixed N-Aryl Pyridinium Films Enable Modular Catalyst Microenvironments for Performing CO₂ Reduction at Low pH”, 2024, Manuscript in Preparation.

15. Gavin P. Heim, Weixuan Nie, Jonas C. Peters* and Theodor Agapie*, “High Selectivity and Performance for C_≥2 Products from CO₂ Reduction in Low pH Electrolytes on Cu Electrodes Modified with Polyaromatic N-Heterocycle Molecular Additives”, 2024, submitted.

14. Weixuan Nie, Gavin P. Heim, Nicholas B. Watkins, Theodor Agapie* and Jonas C. Peters*, “Organic Additive-derived Films on Cu Electrodes Promote Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction to C₂₊ Products Under Strongly Acidic Conditions”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2023, 62, e202216102.

13. Nicholas B. Watkins†, Yueshen Wu† Weixuan Nie, Jonas C. Peters* and Theodor Agapie*, “In-Situ Deposited Polyaromatic Layer Generates Robust Copper Catalyst for Selective Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction at Neutral and Low pH”, ACS Energy Lett., 2023, 8, 189-195.

12. Jukai Zhou†, Weixuan Nie†, Gourhari Jana†, Austin Rodriguez, Drew E. Tarnopol, Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes*, and Charles C. L. McCrory*, “Bimetallic Molecular Co-Co and Co-Zn Complexes for Electrocatalytic CO₂ Reduction: Understanding the Interrelated Effects of Intramolecular Electrostatics and Electronic Coupling on Activity”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023, under revision. (†: Co-First Author)

11. Weixuan Nie* and Charles C. L. McCrory*, “Strategies for Breaking Molecular Scaling Relationships for the Electrochemical CO₂ Reduction Reaction”, Dalton Trans., 2022, 51, 6993-7010. (*: Co-Corresponding Author).

Invited perspective/review article to Themed Collection: 2022 Frontier and Perspective Articles.

Included in Themed Collection: Dalton Transactions HOT Articles.

10. Weixuan Nie, Drew Tarnopol and Charles C. L. McCrory*, “Enhancing a Molecular Electrocatalyst’s Activity for CO₂ Reduction by Simultaneously Modulating Three Substituent Effects”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 3764-3778.

9. Weixuan Nie, Drew Tarnopol and Charles C. L. McCrory*, “The Effect of Extended Conjugation on Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction by Molecular Catalysts and Macromolecular Structures”, Curr. Opin. Electrochem. 2021, 28, 100716.

8. Weixuan Nie, Yanming Wang, Ammar Ibrahim, Ziqiao Xu and Charles C. L. McCrory*, “Electrocatalytic CO₂ Reduction by Cobalt Bis(pyridylmonoimine) Complexes: Effect of Ligand Flexibility on Catalytic Activity”, ACS Catal., 2020, 10, 4942-4959.

7. Yingshuo Liu†, Aniruddha Deb†, Kwan Yee Leung, Weixuan Nie, William Dean, James E. Penner-Hahn*, Charles C. L. McCrory*, “Determining the Coordination Environment and Electronic Structure of Polymer-Encapsulated Cobalt Phthalocyanine under Electrocataytic Conditions using In Situ X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy”, Dalton Trans., 2020, 49, 16329-16339.

6. Weixuan Nie, and Charles C. L. McCrory*. “Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction by a cobalt bis(pyridylmonoimine) complex: effect of acid concentration on catalyst activity and stability”, Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 1579-1582.

5. Kun Fan, Song-Song Bao, Wei-Xuan Nie, Chwen-Haw Liao, and Li-Min Zheng*, “Iridium(III)-Based Metal−Organic Frameworks as Multiresponsive Luminescent Sensors for Fe³⁺, Cr₂O₇²⁻, and ATP²⁻ in Aqueous Media”, Inorg. Chem. 2018, 57, 1079−1089.

4. Kun Fan†, Wei-Xuan Nie†, Lu-Ping Wang, Chwen-Haw Liao, Song-Song Bao, and Li-Min Zheng*, “Defective Metal-Organic Frameworks Incorporating Iridium-Based Metalloligands: Sorption and Dye Degradation Properties”, Chem. Eur. J. 2017, 23, 6615−6624. (†: Co-First Author)

3. Yue-Biao Zhang, Hiroyasu Furukawa, Nakeun Ko, Weixuan Nie, Hye Jeong Park, Satoshi Okajima, Kyle E. Cordova, Hexiang Deng, Jaheon Kim, and Omar M. Yaghi*, “Introduction of Functionality, Selection of Topology, and Enhancement of Gas Adsorption in Multivariate Metal−Organic Framework-177”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 2641−2650.

2. Tao Zheng, Zhong-Sheng Cai, Wei-Xuan Nie, Min Ren, Song-Song Bao* and Li-Min Zheng*, “Modulating the Microporosity of Cobalt Phosphonates via Positional Isomerism of Co-linkers”, CrystEngComm, 2015, 17, 8926–8932.

1. Wei-Xuan Nie, Song-Song Bao, Dai Zeng, Li-Rong Guo‡ and Li-Min Zheng*, “Exfoliated Layered Copper Phosphonate Showing Enhanced Adsorption Capability Towards Pb Ions”, Chem. Commun., 2014, 50, 10622-10625.

The Nie Lab is recruiting postdoctoral scholars, Ph.D students, research assistants as well as administrative assistants. We welcome highly motivated researchers with backgrounds of chemical synthesis, molecular catalyst design, electrocatalysis, material science, chemical engineering or related field to join us. Interested candidates can send their cover letters and CVs to nieweixuan@westlake.edu.cn.