Below this lies a further layer, this time of reality: this is an actual production of Salome, directed by Atom Egoyan for the Canadian Opera Company in 1996. Home movies shot by Jeanine’s father, showing her dancing through a forest blindfolded, appear as giant-sized projections on a scrim behind the singers: it is as if her past had returned to both haunt and taunt her. Aspects and artifacts of that story, moreover, were appropriated by the dead maestro to become part of his production design that is once again on show in the revival. As the metaphorical veils drop one by one, we also learn that her own childhood story has some eerie parallels to Salome’s. A young director called Jeanine ( Amanda Seyfried) has been asked to remount a production of Strauss’s opera that was originally staged by her former mentor who was, as we learn, also her much older lover. It begins with an extended shot of an empty opera house humming with dozens of violins tuning up, a single quivering note that becomes increasingly sinister. Seven Veils follows this established approach. It is this tension between subject and delivery that makes his films - even the bad ones - so intriguing. Not that his work is steamy or lurid in any way: on the contrary, what makes it so distinctive is that he treats depravity with such cool detachment. If anything, it is a wonder that Atom Egoyan hasn’t investigated Salome’s seedy story on film before its stew of perverse lusts, transactional sex, incest and sickly family dynamics is very much of a piece with his own enduring themes. Salome demands the head of Herod’s prisoner John the Baptist, a man she desires so madly that she would have him killed in order to be able to kiss him. According to lore, Salome is step-daughter to King Herod Antipas, who asks her to dance at a dinner and is so riveted by her seductive performance that he offers her whatever she wants as reward. "We want to enhance the precision of catalytic theoretical models to enable better screening for high-performance and stable catalysts," adds Li.The original story comes from the Gospels Oscar Wilde turned it into a play that remains the apotheosis of Decadent literature Richard Strauss adapted it as an opera. Given that pH dependence in electrocatalysis is very common, Li and his colleagues hope to extend this successful model to a variety of catalytic reactions moving forward. "By unraveling the pH-dependence, selectivity, and versatility of M–N–C catalysts, we are paving the way for the development of next-generation catalysts with unprecedented performance and applicability." "Our findings represent a significant milestone in the quest for efficient and sustainable catalytic materials," points out Li. By synthesizing a diverse array of M–N–C catalysts and subjecting them to rigorous experimental testing, the team validated their theoretical predictions, affirming the accuracy of their models in predicting key catalytic parameters. The research also highlighted the intricate interplay between the catalyst's composition and its performance, elucidating factors influencing selectivity for different reaction pathways. a–e, Metal K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) of the MPc/CNT, FePc/CNT-R, and M-COF366/CNT catalysts and their reference samples. Credit: Hao Li et alĮxperimental characterization, performance tests, and validations. The microkinetic ORR volcano models of M–N–C SACs and rate-determining analyses.
Through meticulous analysis of more than 100 M–N–C catalyst structures and comprehensive energetic assessments spanning more than 2,000 data sets, the researchers uncovered a pH-dependent evolution in the catalytic activity of these materials.Ĭontrary to previous assumptions, the study revealed a nuanced response of M–N–C catalysts to varying pH levels, with some exhibiting remarkable stability and performance across acidic and alkaline environments.
The group, which includes Hao Li, Associate Professor at Tohoku University's Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR), delved deep into the intricacies of M–N–C catalysts, addressing fundamental questions that have long puzzled the scientific community. Scientists have identified metal–nitrogen–carbon (M–N–C) SACs as efficient and cost-effective alternatives to platinum-based catalysts in critical applications such as fuel cells and batteries.ĭespite their promise, however, there are still several aspects of their behavior in the oxygen reduction reaction-a crucial process that occurs in various electrochemical systems-that are not well understood, such as their activity dependence on pH, selectivity for different electron transfer pathways, and the identification of rate-determining steps. Their insights were featured as the cover article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on January 12, 2024.