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Selective reduction of ketone/aldehydes to alcohols is of great importance in green chemistry and chemical engineering. Highly efficient catalysts are still demanded to work under mild conditions, especially at room temperature. Here we present a synergistic function of singleatom palladium (Pd 1 ) and nanoparticles (Pd NPs ) on TiO 2 for highly efficient ketone/aldehydes hydrogenation to alcohols at room temperature. Compared to simple but inferior Pd 1 /TiO 2 and Pd NPs /TiO 2 catalysts, more than twice activity enhancement is achieved with the Pd 1+NPs /TiO 2 catalyst that integrates both Pd 1 and Pd NPs on mesoporous TiO 2 supports, obtained by a simple but large-scaled spray pyrolysis route. The synergistic function of Pd 1 and Pd NPs is assigned so that the partial Pd 1 dispersion contributes enough sites for the activation of C=O group while Pd NPs site boosts the dissociation of H 2 molecules to H atoms. This work not only contributes a superior catalyst for ketone/aldehydes hydrogenation, but also deepens the knowledge on their hydrogenation mechanism and guides people to engineer the catalytic behaviors as needed.

In this paper, we successfully fabricate a stable and highly efficient direct sunlight plasmonic photocatalyst Ag-AgBr through a facile hydrothermal and subsequently sunlight-induced route. The diffuse reflectance spectra of Ag-AgBr indicate strong absorption in both UV and visible light region. The obtained photocatalyst shows excellent sunlight-driven photocatalytic performance. It can decompose organic dye within several minutes under direct sunlight irradiation and maintain a high level even though used five times. In addition, both the scanning electron microscopy images and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy dates reveal the as-prepared photocatalyst to be very stable. Moreover, the mechanism suggests that the high photocatalytic activity and excellent stability result from the super sensitivity of AgBr to light, the surface plasmon resonance of Ag nanoparticles in the region of visible light, and the complexation between Ag(+) and nitrogen atom. Thus, the facile preparation and super performance of Ag-AgBr will make it available to utilize sunlight efficiently to remove organic pollutants, destroy bacteria, and so forth.

Uniform 3D flower-like MoS2nanostructures were successfully synthesized through a facile two-step hydrothermal method and had high supercapacitor and adsorption behaviors toward Rhodamine B.

In this work, we report the simple solid-state formation of porous Co3O4 with a hexagonal sheetlike structure. The synthesis is based on controlled thermal oxidative decomposition and recrystallization of precursor Co(OH)2 hexagonal nanosheets. After thermal treatment, the hexagonal sheetlike morphology can be completely preserved, despite the fact that there is a volume contraction accompanying the process: Co(OH)2-->Co3O4. Because of the intrinsic crystal contraction, a highly porous structure of the product is simultaneously created. Importantly, when evaluated as electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries, the as-prepared porous Co3O4 nanosheets exhibit superior Li-battery performance with good cycle life and high capacity (1450 mAh g(-1)) due to their porous sheetlike structure and small size. As far as we know, the performance of the Co3O4-based anode materials for lithium batteries presented here is the best up to now. Considering the improved performance and cost-effective synthesis, the as-prepared porous Co3O4 nanosheets might be suitable as anode electrodes for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

An aerosol-spray-assisted approach (ASAA) is proposed and confirmed as a precisely controllable and continuous method to fabricate amorphous mixed metal oxides for electrochemical water splitting. The proportion of metal elements can be accurately controlled to within (5±5) %. The products can be sustainably obtained, which is highly suitable for industrial applications. ASAA was used to show that Fe6Ni10O(x) is the best catalyst among the investigated Fe-Ni-O(x) series with an overpotential of as low as 0.286 V (10 mA cm(-2)) and a Tafel slope of 48 mV/decade for the electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction. Therefore, this work contributes a versatile, continuous, and reliable way to produce and optimize amorphous metal oxide catalysts.

A sensitive face: Polyhedral ZnSnO3 microcrystals with controlled exposed facets are selectively synthesized in high yield by a convenient, repeatable, and low‐temperature process (see image). The polyhedral ZnSnO3 particles have good gas‐sensing properties and show high sensitivity to H2S, HCHO, and C2H5OH, as well as good reproducibility and short response/recovery times. Different shapes of ZnSnO3 polyhedra have unique gas sensitivity to the detected gases because of their different active facets.

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