Molybdenum (Mo)-based compounds with properly engineered nanostructures usually possess improved reversible lithium storage capabilities, which offer great promise to boost the performance of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Nevertheless, a lack of efficient and high-yield methods for constructing rational nanostructures has largely restricted the application of these potentially important materials. Herein we demonstrate a metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) mediated strategy to successfully synthesize a series of one-dimensional Mo-based/carbon composites with distinct nanostructures. In this process, starting from well-designed MoO nanorods, the crystal control growth is first proposed that a layer of MOFs is achieved to be controllably grown on surfaces of MoO, forming an obvious core-shell structure, and then the adopted precursor can be in situ transformed into MoO or MoC which are both well confined in conductive porous carbons through direct carbonization at different temperatures, where the MOFs shell serve as both carbon sources and the reactant to react with MoO simultaneously. Benefiting from this design, all optimized products exhibit enhanced electrochemical performances when evaluated as anode materials for LIBs, especially the hollow MoO/C and core-shell MoC/C electrodes, show best reversible capacities up to 810 and 530 mAh g even after 600 cycles at a current density of 1 A g, respectively. So this work may broaden the application of MOFs as a kind of coating materials and elucidates the attractive lithium storage performances of molybdenum-based compounds.

Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction, the cornerstone of the emerging hydrogen economy, can be essentially facilitated by robustly heterostructural electrocatalysts. Herein, we report a highly active and stably heterostructural electrocatalyst consisting of NiCoP nanowires decorated with CoP nanoparticles on a nickel foam (NiCoP–CoP/NF) for effective hydrogen evolution. The CoP nanoparticles are strongly interfaced with NiCoP nanowires producing abundant electrocatalytically active sites. Combined with the integrated catalyst design, NiCoP–CoP/NF affords a remarkable hydrogen evolution performance in terms of high activity, enhanced kinetics, and outstanding durability in an alkaline electrolyte, superior to most of the Co (or Ni)-phosphide-based catalysts reported previously. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate that there is an interfacial effect between NiCoP and CoP, which allows a preferable hydrogen adsorption and thus contributes to the significantly enhanced performance. Furthermore, an electrolyzer employing NiCoP–CoP/NF as the cathode and RuO2/NF as the anode (NiCoP–CoP/NF||RuO2/NF) exhibits excellent water-splitting activity and outstanding durability, which is comparable to that of the benchmark Pt–C/NF||RuO2/NF electrolyzer.

Immobilization of metal complexes on solid supports is an efficient approach to remedy the drawbacks of homogeneous catalysis. In this study, an in situ strategy of synthesis and immobilization of a copper (salen) complex onto graphene oxide (GO) support has been developed. To provide the salen ligands, GO was covalently modified with an aminosilane, followed by condensation with salicylaldehyde. The copper (salen) complex was subsequently synthesized and simultaneously immobilized onto the GO surface with a designed tetrahedral chelate structure. The immobilized copper (salen) complex [Cu­(salen)–f–GO] kept the two-dimensional sheetlike character of GO and was demonstrated to be highly effective for the epoxidation of olefins. It could be readily reused for successive twelve times without discernible activity and selectivity deterioration, which displays potential for practical applications.