Bifunctional WC-Supported RuO2 Nanoparticles for Robust Water Splitting in Acidic Media.

We report the strong catalyst-support interaction in WC-supported RuO2 nanoparticles (RuO2 -WC NPs) anchored on carbon nanosheets with low loading of Ru (4.11 wt.%), which significantly promotes the oxygen evolution reaction activity with a η10 of 347 mV and a mass activity of 1430 A gRu -1 , eight-fold higher than that of commercial RuO2 (176 A gRu -1 ). Theoretical calculations demonstrate that the strong catalyst-support interaction between RuO2 and the WC support could optimize the surrounding electronic structure of Ru sites to reduce the reaction barrier. Considering the likewise excellent catalytic ability for hydrogen production, an acidic overall water splitting (OWS) electrolyzer with a good stability constructed by bifunctional RuO2 -WC NPs only requires a cell voltage of 1.66 V to afford 10 mA cm-2 . The unique 0D/2D nanoarchitectures rationally combining a WC support with precious metal oxides provides a promising strategy to tradeoff the high catalytic activity and low cost for acidic OWS applications.

Dataset on comparable magnetocaloric properties of melt-extracted Gd36Tb20Co20Al24 metallic glass microwires.

The data in this article is the supplementary data of the research article entitled "Comparable magnetocaloric properties of melt-extracted Gd36Tb20Co20Al24 metallic glass microwires" (Yin et al., 2020). The data shows the circular cross section of Gd36Tb20Co20Al24 metallic glass microwires with a diameter of ∼55 µm. The data also shows that the chemical compositions of microwires are basically uniform on macro-scale and micro-scale.

Construction of FeP Hollow Nanoparticles Densely Encapsulated in Carbon Nanosheet Frameworks for Efficient and Durable Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Production.

Developing noble-metal-free based electrocatalysts with high activity, good stability, and low cost is critical for large-scale hydrogen production via water splitting. In this work, hollow FeP nanoparticles densely encapsulated in carbon nanosheet frameworks (donated as hollow FeP/C nanosheets), in situ converted from Fe-glycolate precursor nanosheets through carbonization and subsequent phosphorization, are designed and synthesized as an advanced electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction. FeP hollow nanoparticles are transformed from intermediate Fe3O4 nanoparticles through the nanoscale Kirkendall effect. The two-dimensional architecture, densely embedding FeP hollow nanoparticles, provides abundant accessible active sites and short electron and ion pathways. The in situ generated carbon nanosheet frameworks can not only offer a conductive network but also protect the active FeP from oxidation. As a result, hollow FeP/C nanosheets exhibit excellent electrocatalytic performance for the hydrogen evolution reaction in 0.5 m H2SO4 with a quite low overpotential of 51.1 mV at 10 mA cm-2, small Tafel slope of 41.7 mV dec-1, and remarkable long-term stability. The study highlights the in situ synthesis of two-dimensional metal phosphide/C nanocomposites with highly porous features for advanced energy storage and conversion.

N-Doped TiO2 Nanobelts with Coexposed (001) and (101) Facets and Their Highly Efficient Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production.

To narrow the band gap (3.2 eV) of TiO2 and extend its practical applicability under sunlight, the doping with nonmetal elements has been used to tune TiO2 electronic structure. However, the doping also brings new recombination centers among the photoinduced charge carriers, which results in a quantum efficiency loss accordingly. It has been proved that the {101} facets of anatase TiO2 are beneficial to generating and transmitting more reductive electrons to promote the H2-evolution in the photoreduction reaction, and the {001} facets exhibit a higher photoreactivity to accelerate the reaction involved of photogenerated hole. Thus, it was considered by us that using the surface heterojunction composed of both {001} and {101} facets may depress the disadvantage of N doping. Fortunately, we successfully synthesized anatase N-doped TiO2 nanobelts with a surface heterojunction of coexposed (101) and (001) facets. As expected, it realized the charge pairs' spatial separation and showed higher photocatalytic activity under a visible-light ray: a hydrogen generation rate of 670 µmol h(-1) g(-1) (much higher than others reported previously in literature of N-doped TiO2 nanobelts).

ZnO/ZnS heterostructured nanorod arrays and their efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

Semiconducting heterostructures have been widely applied in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution due to their variable band gaps and high energy conversion efficiency. As typical semiconducting heterostructures, ZnO/ZnS heterostructured nanorod arrays (HNRAs) have been obtained through a simple anion-exchange process in this work. Structural characterization indicates that the heterostructured nanorods (HNRs) are all composed of hexagonal wurtzite ZnO core and cubic zinc-blende ZnS shell. As expected, the as-obtained one-dimensional heterostructures not only lower the energy barrier but also enhance the separation ability of photogenerated carriers in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. Through comparisons, it is found that 1D ZnO/ZnS HNRAs exhibit much better performance in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution than 1D ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) and 1D ZnS NRAs. The maximum H2 production is 19.2 mmol h(-1) for 0.05 g catalyst under solar-simulated light irradiation at 25 °C and the corresponding quantum efficiency is 13.9 %, which goes beyond the economical threshold of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution technology.

One pot, two phases: individual orthorhombic and face-centered cubic ZnSnO3 obtained synchronously in one solution.

Many modern technologies rely on the functional materials that are subject to their phase purity. The topic of obtaining pure crystals from the concomitant allotropes is ever before the eyes of numerous researchers. Here we adopt a template-inducing route and obtain the isolated allotropes located in the appointed regions in the same reaction system. As a typical example, well-defined individual face-centered cubic and orthorhombic ZnSnO3 crystals were successfully synthesized assisted by a ZnO inducing template or without it in an identical solution, respectively. And the different growing mechanisms of the ZnSnO3 allotropes were also proposed, which takes a pivotal step toward the realization of allotropes dividing. Moreover, the two individual pure-phased ZnSnO3 allotropes obtained in one reaction system exhibit porous microspherical morphologies constructed by the tiny nanograins, resulting in their high sensitivities to ethanol with fast response and recovery and good selectivity and stability.

Mechanical ball-milling preparation of fullerene/cobalt core/shell nanocomposites with high electrochemical hydrogen storage ability.

The design and synthesis of new hydrogen storage nanomaterials with high capacity at low cost is extremely desirable but remains challenging for today's development of hydrogen economy. Because of the special honeycomb structures and excellent physical and chemical characters, fullerenes have been extensively considered as ideal materials for hydrogen storage materials. To take the most advantage of its distinctive symmetrical carbon cage structure, we have uniformly coated C60's surface with metal cobalt in nanoscale to form a core/shell structure through a simple ball-milling process in this work. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Raman spectra, high-solution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX) elemental mappings, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements have been conducted to evaluate the size and the composition of the composites. In addition, the blue shift of C60 pentagonal pinch mode demonstrates the formation of Co-C chemical bond, and which enhances the stability of the as-obtained nanocomposites. And their electrochemical experimental results demonstrate that the as-obtained C60/Co composites have excellent electrochemical hydrogen storage cycle reversibility and considerably high hydrogen storage capacities of 907 mAh/g (3.32 wt % hydrogen) under room temperature and ambient pressure, which is very close to the theoretical hydrogen storage capacities of individual metal Co (3.33 wt % hydrogen). Furthermore, their hydrogen storage processes and the mechanism have also been investigated, in which the quasi-reversible C60/Co↔C60/Co-Hx reaction is the dominant cycle process.