Solar‐thermal water evaporation, as a promising method for clean water production, has attracted increasing attention. However, solar water evaporators that exhibit both high water vapor generation ability and anti‐oil‐fouling ability have not been reported. Here, a unique metal–organic‐framework‐based hierarchical structure, referred to as MOF‐based hierarchical structure (MHS), is rationally designed and prepared, which simultaneously displays a high solar absorption and a superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic surface property. As a proof‐of‐concept application, a device prepared from the MHS can achieve a high solar‐thermal water evaporation rate of 1.50 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun illumination. Importantly, the MHS also possesses an excellent anti‐oil‐fouling property, ensuring its superior water evaporation performance even in oil‐contaminated water. The high solar‐thermal water evaporation rate and anti‐oil‐fouling property make the MHS a promising material for the solar‐thermal water production.

The continuous exploration of clean‐energy technology is critical for the sustainable development of society. The recent work on the electric energy harvesting from water evaporation has made a significant contribution to the utilization of clean energy for self‐powering systems. Here, a novel metal–organic‐framework‐based hybrid nanomaterial is delicately designed and synthesized by the growth of UIO‐66 nanoparticles on 2D AlOOH nanoflakes. Due to the combined merits from the 2D morphology, which is inherited from the AlOOH nanoflakes, and the high surface potential, which originates from the UIO‐66 nanoparticles, the device made of the AlOOH/UIO‐66 hybrid nanomaterials can harvest electric energy from natural water evaporation. An open‐circuit voltage of 1.63 ± 0.10 V can be achieved on the prototype devices made of the hybrid nanomaterial. As a proof‐of‐concept application, a small electric appliance, e.g., a digital calculator, is powered up by a 3 × 3 device array connected in a combined series–parallel configuration.

Heterostructured, including heterophase, noble-metal nanomaterials have attracted much interest due to their promising applications in diverse fields. However, great challenges still remain in the rational synthesis of well-defined noble-metal heterophase nanostructures. Herein, we report the preparation of Pd nanoparticles with an unconventional hexagonal close-packed (2H type) phase, referred to as 2H-Pd nanoparticles, via a controlled phase transformation of amorphous Pd nanoparticles. Impressively, by using the 2H-Pd nanoparticles as seeds, Au nanomaterials with different crystal phases epitaxially grow on the specific exposed facets of the 2H-Pd, i.e., facecentered cubic (fcc) Au (fcc-Au) on the (002) h facets of 2H-Pd while 2H-Au on the other exposed facets, to achieve well-defined fcc-2H-fcc heterophase Pd@Au core−shell nanorods. Moreover, through such unique facet-directed crystal-phase-selective epitaxial growth, a series of unconventional fcc-2H-fcc heterophase core−shell nanostructures, including Pd@Ag, Pd@Pt, Pd@PtNi, and Pd@PtCo, have also been prepared. Impressively, the fcc-2H-fcc heterophase Pd@Au nanorods show excellent performance toward the electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) for production of carbon monoxide with Faradaic efficiencies of over 90% in an exceptionally wide applied potential window from −0.9 to −0.4 V (versus the reversible hydrogen electrode), which is among the best reported CO 2 RR catalysts in H-type electrochemical cells.

Ag@MoS2 core-shell heterostructure as SERS platform to reveal the hydrogen evolution active sites of single-layer MoS2