Molybdenum carbide (Mo2C) is recognized as an alternative electrocatalyst to noble metal for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, a facile, low cost, and scalable method is provided for the fabrication of Mo2C‐based eletrocatalyst (Mo2C/G‐NCS) by a spray‐drying, and followed by annealing. As‐prepared Mo2C/G‐NCS electrocatalyst displays that ultrafine Mo2C nanopartilces are uniformly embedded into graphene wrapping N‐doped porous carbon microspheres derived from chitosan. Such designed structure offer several favorable features for hydrogen evolution application: 1) the ultrasmall size of Mo2C affords a large exposed active sites; 2) graphene‐wrapping ensures great electrical conductivity; 3) porous structure increases the electrolyte–electrode contact points and lowers the charge transfer resistance; 4) N‐dopant interacts with H+ better than C atoms and favorably modifies the electronic structures of adjacent Mo and C atoms. As a result, the Mo2C/G‐NCS demonstrates superior HER activity with a very low overpotential of 70 or 66 mV to achieve current density of 10 mA cm−2, small Tafel slope of 39 or 37 mV dec−1, respectively, in acidic and alkaline media, and high stability, indicating that it is a great potential candidate as HER electrocatalyst.

A highly uniform N-doped carbon nanoflower was demonstrated as a bifunctional material for efficient electrocatalytic oxygen reduction and high performance lithium–sulfur batteries.

Rational design of hollow micro‐ and/or nano‐structured cathodes as sulfur hosts has potential for high‐performance lithium‐sulfur batteries. However, their further commercial application is hindered because infusing sulfur into hollow hosts is hard to control and the interactions between high loading sulfur and electrolyte are poor. Herein, we designed hierarchical porous hollow carbon nanospheres with radially inwardly aligned supporting ribs to mitigate these problems. Such a structure could aid the sulfur infusion and maximize sulfur utilization owing to the well‐ordered pore channels. This highly organized internal carbon skeleton can also enhance the electronic conductivity. The hollow carbon nanospheres with further nitrogen‐doping as the sulfur host material exhibit good capacity and excellent cycling performance (0.044 % capacity degradation per each cycle for 1000 cycles).

As a sulfur host for the lithium–sulfur battery, Ni3S2 anchored to N/S co-doped RGO with a highly pleated structure has demonstrated the strong capture of polysulfides, exhibiting high reversible capacity and cycling stability.

We have successfully constructed a new type of intercalation membrane material by covalently grafting organic tris(hydroxypropyl)phosphine (THPP) molecules onto hydroxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT-OH) as a functional interlayer for the advanced LSBs. The as-assembled interlayer has been demonstrated to be responsible for the fast conversion kinetics of polysulfides, the inhibition of polysulfide shuttle effect, as well as the formation of a stable solid electrolyte interphase(SEI) layer. By means of spectroscopic and electrochemical analysis, we further found THPP plays a key role in accelerating the conversion of polysulfides into low-ordered lithium sulfides and suppressing the loss of polysulfides, thus rendering the asdesigned lithium-sulfur battery in this work a high capacity, excellent rate performance and long-term stability. Even at low temperatures, the capacity decay rate was only 0.036 % per cycle for 1700 cycles.

Reported herein is comprehensive study of a highly active and stable cobalt catalyst for overall water splitting. This composite SFCNF/Co1−xS@CoN, consisting of S‐doped flexible carbon nanofiber (SFCNF) matrix, Co1−xS nanoparticles, and CoN coatings, is prepared by integration of electrospinning and atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. Representative results include the following: 1) ultrathin CoN layer is deposited by ALD on the surface of flexible substrate without any sacrifice of SFCNF and Co1−xS; 2) the composite exhibits strong electrocatalytic activity in both acidic and basic solutions. The overpotentials of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are 20 and 180 mV, respectively, at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 in basic medium. A small Tafel slope of 54.4 mV dec−1 is observed in 0.5 m H2SO4 electrolyte; 3) tested as overall water splitting electrode, the composite records a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a relative low cell voltage of 1.58 V and long‐term stability for 20 h at a current density of up to 50 mA cm−2. The superior performance for overall water splitting is probably attributed to the synergistic effect of Co1−xS and ALD CoN. Specifically, implementation of ALD can be extended to innovate nanostructured materials for overall water splitting and even other renewable energy aspects.

An efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalyst consisting of TiN @ Co5.47N is constructed by the integration of plasma nitriding and a delicate atomic layer deposition (ALD) CoxN process. Representative results of comprehensive study are: 1) the material is electrocatalytically active in universal medium. The OER overpotentials are 398, 248, and 411 mV in acidic, basic, and neutral electrolyte, respectively, at a current density of 50 mA cm−2; 2) the material records an impressive long‐term stability of continuous catalysis for 1500 h, during which the overpotential increases by only 1.3%. The synergistically electronic interaction between TiN and ALD Co5.47N, as well as a protective yet active CoTi layered double hydroxides (CoTi LDH) layer formed simultaneously at the interface/surface of TiN @ Co5.47N during the electrocatalytic process, is speculated to be responsible for the superior OER performance; 3) the surface Co atoms other than Ti of CoTi LDH, exhibit electrocatalytic activity with dramatically low overpotential based on density functional theory calculations.

Reported herein is an active and durable CoN‐containing oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalyst which efficiently functions in a neutral medium (pH ≈7). The composite material (N, S)‐RGO@CoN is synthesized by delicate atomic layer deposition (ALD) of CoN on a nitrogen and sulfur (N, S) co‐doped reduced graphene oxide (RGO) substrate. Representative results of the comprehensive study are: 1) The flower‐like sphere RGO substrate prepared by spray drying method features rich physical and chemical properties, which are beneficial for rapid mass/charge transfer to improve the intrinsic OER process; 2) the optimal ALD material for OER tests is afforded by tuning spray conditions and ALD parameters. Versatile structural and compositional characterizations confirm uniform growth and strong chemical coupling of nanostructured CoN on (N, S)‐RGO matrix; 3) the material is electrocatalytically active and durable in a neutral electrolyte, recording an OER overpotential of 220 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and stability of 20 h continuous catalysis at 20 mA cm−2 with nearly 100% Faradic efficiency; 4) Upon the experimental studies and density functional theory calculations, the eventual mechanism of remarkable OER activity conforms to the structural fate of ALD CoN electronic coupling to the carbon substrate.