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-

No abstract

Amino acid mediated reduction of GO through the nucleophilic attack yields N doped graphene in both acidic and basic media.

Zinc oxide/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites (ZnO/rGO) are synthesized via a simple one-pot solvothermal technique. The nanoparticle–nanorod turnability was achieved with the increase in GO additive, which was necessary to control the defect formation. The optimal defect in ZnO/rGO not only increased ZnO/rGO surface and carrier concentration, but also provided the alternative carrier pathway assisted with rGO sheet for electron–hole separation and prolonging carrier recombination. These properties are ideal for photodetection and photocatalytic applications. For photosensing properties, ZnO/rGO shows the improvement of photosensitivity compared with pristine ZnO from 1.51 (ZnO) to 3.94 (ZnO/rGO (20%)). Additionally, applying bending strain on ZnO/rGO enhances its photosensitivity even further, as high as 124% at r = 12.5 mm, due to improved surface area and induced negative piezoelectric charge from piezoelectric effect. Moreover, the photocatalytic activity with methylene blue (MB) was studied. It was observed that the rate of MB degradation was higher in presence of ZnO/rGO than pristine ZnO. Therefore, ZnO/rGO became a promising materials for different applications.

Novel ultrathin graphene sheets (0.41 ± 0.03 nm) with increased sp2 character, high specific capacitance and charge–discharge capability have been synthesized and demonstrated to have potential energy storage applications.