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(a)–(c) FE-SEM images of CuO nanoplates on Ni foam, flower-shaped CuO and bud-shaped CuO. (d) Specific capacitance and (d) and (e) Ragone plots of power density vs. energy density according to CuO electrodes in an asymmetrical device.

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Ni, Fe, and Cu foams to form robust binder-free electrodes for high-performance electrocatalytic reactions. [55][56][57][58][59] Interestingly, multidimensional electrocatalysts grown at the nanoscale on a range of current collectors, namely substrates and will benefit from a strong adhesion with the current collector to avoid catalyst delamination, limited active sites, and charge transfer blockage to enhance catalytic reactions (Figure 1b-d). [9,[60][61][62][63][64] Key Prospects, Insights, and the Dynamic Properties of Nano-and Microstructured Binder-Free Electrocatalysts and Their Direct Impact on Electrochemical ReactionsWater splitting has become one of the most important technologies to produce hydrogen (H 2 ) in high purity form. Water splitting includes two half-reactions, namely the cathodic HER and anodic OER. [8,65] Generally, the electrocatalytic performance and activity are highly sensitive to local reaction conditions and is largely valued by the energy required for adsorption/desorption of reaction intermediates and the rupture/creation of chemical bonds. Hence, the conventional powder form of precious metals such as Pt/C for the HER and RuO 2 or IrO 2 for the OER are considered ideal electrocatalysts. [66] In addition, several nonprecious 1D, 2D, and 3D nano-and microstructured powder catalysts such as MoS 2 , WS 2 , Ni 3 S 2 , NiCo 2 S 4 are also of interest for the HER and OER reactions. [54,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74] However, for commercial purposes and practical applica-

The rGO–MoO3nanosphere hybrid synthesized exceeds the performance of high quality commercial Pt/C in terms of electrocatalytic activity, stability, durability and CO tolerance.

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First time, four distinct types of Lead Magnesium Titanate (PMT) perovskites including spheres, flakes, hierarchical flower and thin microbelts shaped were finely tuned via facile solution method to develop cost effective and high performance photoanode material for water splitting. The influence of solvent effects during structural tuning, purity, morphology, optical obsorption, structural phase transition and stoichiometric formation of prepared Lead Magnesium Titanate perovskites has been discussed in detail. Remarkably, thin microbelts structured PMT perovskite (PMTT) exhibited an excellent water splitting performance and it is more sensitive to the illuminated visible light. Owing to the unique structural features, the photoconversion efficiency value of PMTT perovskite is ~3.9, 3.54, 2.85 and 1.52 times higher than those of other prepared PMT perovskites including pristine PbTiO 3. The excellent water splitting performance of PMTT (thin microbelts) may be ascribed to the remarkable structural features that include a large surface area, high optical absorbance, more active sites and high interface area of the microbelts, which provide large contact areas between the electrolyte and highly active materials for electrolyte diffusion and a rapid route for charge transfer with minimal diffusion resistance. In addition, each thin microbelt is directly in contact with the Ni foam substrate, which can also shorten the diffusion path for the electrons. The demonstrated approach paves the way to significantly low-cost and high-throughput production of next generation, high performance and highly active water splitting perovskite photocatalyst.

Improving the antibacterial activity of biodegradable materials is crucial for combatting widespread drug-resistant bacteria and plastic pollutants. In this work, we studied polyaniline (PANI)-functionalized zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) to improve surface charges. A PANI-functionalized ZnO NP surface was prepared using a simple impregnation technique. The PANI functionalization of ZnO successfully increased the positive surface charge of the ZnO NPs. In addition, PANI-functionalized ZnO improved mechanical properties and thermal stability. Besides those properties, the water permeability of the bionanocomposite films was decreased due to their increased hydrophobicity. PANI-functionalized ZnO NPs were applied to thermoplastic starch (TPS) films for physical properties and antibacterial studies using Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The PANI-functionalized ZnO bionanocomposite films exhibited excellent antibacterial activity for both E. coli (76%) and S. aureus (72%). This result suggests that PANI-functionalized ZnO NPs can improve the antibacterial activity of TPS-based bionanocomposite films.