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Browsing Staff publications (AEPe) by Publisher "Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)"

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    Fuelling hydrogen futures? A trust-based model of social acceptance
    (Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), 2025) Gordon, Joel A.; Balta-Ozkan, Nazmiye; Haq, Anwar U. l.; Nabavi, Seyed Ali
    Public trust plays a fundamental role in shaping national energy policies in democratic countries, as exemplified by nuclear phase-out in Germany following the Fukushima accident. While trust dynamics have been explored in different contexts of the energy transition, few studies have attempted to quantify the influence of public trust in shaping social acceptance and adoption potential. Moreover, the interaction between public trust and perceived community benefits remains underexplored in the literature, despite the relevance of each factor to facilitating social acceptance and technology uptake. In response, this quantitative analysis closes a parallel research gap by examining the antecedents of public trust and perceived community benefits in the context of deploying hydrogen heating and cooking appliances across parts of the UK housing stock. Drawing on results from a nationally representative online survey (N = 1845), the study advances insights on the consumer perspective of transitioning to ‘hydrogen homes’, which emerged as a topical and controversial aspect of UK energy policy in recent years. Partial least squares structural equation modelling and necessary condition analysis are undertaken to assess the predictive capabilities of a trust-based model, which incorporates aspects of institutional, organisational, interpersonal, epistemic, and social trust. Regarding sufficiency-based logic, social trust is the most influential predictor of public trust, whereas trust in product and service quality corresponds to the most important necessary condition for enabling public trust. Nevertheless, trust in the government, energy sector, and entities involved in research & development are needed to facilitate and strengthen public trust. Overall, this study enriches scholarly understanding of how public trust may shape prospects for trialling novel low-carbon technologies, highlights the need for segment-specific consumer engagement, and advances scholarly understanding of the innovation-decision process in the context of net-zero pathways. As policymakers approach critical decisions on the portfolio of technologies needed to support residential decarbonisation, public trust will prove fundamental to fuelling hydrogen-based energy futures.
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    Hydrogen bond enhanced electrochemical hydrogenation of benzoic acid over a bimetallic catalyst
    (Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), 2025-06-07) Catizane, Cesar; Jiang, Ying; Sumner, Joy
    Electrochemical hydrogenation (ECH) is a sustainable alternative to traditional hydrogenation methods, offering selective reduction of organic compounds under mild conditions. This study investigates the co-hydrogenation of benzoic acid (BA) and phenol on a platinum-ruthenium on activated carbon cloth (PtRu/ACC) catalyst, with a focus on the synergistic effects arising from hydrogen bonding. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the formation of a hydrogen-bonded complex between BA and phenol facilitates adsorption energy and lowers activation barrier energies compared to BA alone. Experimental results demonstrate that a 20 mM BA and 5 mM phenol mixture achieves the highest conversion rate (87.33%) and faradaic efficiency (63%), significantly outperforming single-compound systems. Notably, co-hydrogenation facilitates the reduction of BA to cyclohexanemethanol, a valuable product for biofuel applications, which has reduced corrosiveness and improved energy density. These findings underscore the potential for optimising multi-compound ECH systems through targeted catalyst design and reagent concentration tuning, thus advancing the development of efficient strategies for bio-oil upgrading and sustainable chemical production.