The phosphorization of molybdenum leads to a good non-noble metal catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction in both acidic and alkaline conditions.

to the efficiency loss of the overall electrochemical process. [2] Therefore, efficient OER electrocatalyst is a cornerstone for the sustainable energy storage and conversion technologies. [3] Noble-metal-based catalysts such as Ru and Ir oxides have been reported to be excellent OER catalysts; [4] however, their low natural abundance and higher cost render their widespread commercial utilization impractical.[5] Thus, developing efficient, durable, and cost-effective catalytic materials for OER is crucial, but so far still remains a great challenge.Recently, various metal-metalloid compound materials such as chalcogenides, nitrides, and phosphides have been reported to exhibit promising OER electrocatalytic activities. [6] This has been attributed to the charge transfer between different elements and the modified electronic structures, and consequently lowers the kinetic energy barriers of the electrochemical processes. [7] In this regard, to extend such applications on metal borides is reasonable, wherein metal borides share certain properties with other metal-metalloids, such as bonding schema in metal phosphides. [8] Recently, the application of monometallic borides such as cobalt boride, iron boride, and nickel boride as well as cobalt-borate-based graphene hybrid as oxygen-evolving catalyst has been reported to exhibit promising electrocatalytic activity for OER in alkaline media. [9] However, multimetal-metalloid boron-based material, herein referred to as an amorphous quaternary metal boride, for simplicity, as oxygen-evolving electrocatalyst, reported to date is very limited. Thus, it is still of great interest to develop metal-boride-based OER catalysts and further to explore their catalytic activities. The as-identified approach to enhance electrochemical OER properties in metalmetalloid material opens a new avenue in related applications for energy devices that involve OER such as water electrolysis and metal-air batteries.Despite the complicated structure of amorphous material, well-characterized amorphous nanomaterial as oxygen-evolving material has received attention due to the unique properties such as higher catalytic selectivity and activity. [10] A great number of under-coordinated metal atoms, and hence abundant defects, in amorphous nanomaterial may provide more reactive sites at the catalyst surface, and as a result, facilitating the binding of hydroxyls and thus enhancing OER performance. [11] Furthermore, these amorphous nanomaterials have attracted much attention in other electrochemical applications Cost-effective and efficient oxygen-evolving electrocatalysts are urgently required for energy storage and conversion technologies. In this work, an amorphous trimetallic boride nanocatalyst (Fe-Co-2.3Ni-B) prepared by a simple approach is reported as a highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalyst. It exhibits an overpotential (η) of 274 mV to deliver a geometric current density (j geo ) of 10 mA cm −2 , a small Tafel slope of 38 mV dec −1 , and excellent long-term durabil...

Molecular Co ions were grafted onto doped graphene in a coordination environment, resulting in the formation of molecularly well-defined, highly active electrocatalytic sites at a heterogeneous interface for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The S dopants of graphene are suggested to be one of the binding sites and to be responsible for improving the intrinsic activity of the Co sites. The turnover frequency of such Co sites is greater than that of many Co-based nanostructures and IrO catalysts. Through a series of carefully designed experiments, the pathway for the evolution of the Co cation-based molecular catalyst for the OER was further demonstrated on such a single Co-ion site for the first time. The Co ions were successively oxidized to Co and Co states prior to the OER. The sequential oxidation was coupled with the transfer of different numbers of protons/hydroxides and generated an active Co═O fragment. A side-on hydroperoxo ligand of the Co site is proposed as a key intermediate for the formation of dioxygen.

A novel 3D hierarchical nanocomposite of vertically aligned porous FeP nano­wires on reduced graphene oxide is prepared as a demonstration of constructing an efficient hydrogen evolution catalyst. Extension of this nanostructuring strategy to other functional nanocomposites by combining different dimensional nanomaterials is attractive.

Substitutional nitrogen doping in graphene has been a very powerful tool to tailor the pristine property of graphene and furthermore extend its application. While nitrogen-doped graphene (N-graphene) has shown many potential applications in catalysis, electronics, sensors and so on, there is still a lack of accurate control of substitutional nitrogen doping, and higher performance toward various applications is always needed. This Perspective summarizes the ongoing developments toward better control of nitrogen doping. Moreover, two recent strategies aiming to promote the activity of N-graphene are also discussed.

A hybrid support consisting of carbon nitride and graphene (CN x /G) is prepared by annealing polypyrrole/GO at 800 °C. Pd nanoparticles (NPs) are then loaded onto the support by a microwave–polyol method. Pd-CN x /G is used as a catalyst for glycerol electro-oxidation in 0.5 M NaOH aqueous solution. Electrochemical characterization and product analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography show that, in comparison to Pd NPs supported on carbon black, Pd NPs on a support containing nitrogen atoms has the ability to promote selectivity toward C3 products as well as increase activity. The main factors influencing the selectivity and activity are also discussed.

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A specific bifunctional molecule containing amidine is prepared to construct a CO2-responsive surface via molecular self-assembly. The smart surface undergoes CO2-responsive switching of surface charges and wettability, leading to distinctively selective adsorption of hydrophobic/hydrophilic molecules.