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Design and synthesis of effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline environments is critical to reduce energy losses in alkaline water electrolysis. Here we report a hybrid nanomaterial comprising of one-dimensional ultrathin platinum nanowires grown on two-dimensional single-layered nickel hydroxide. Judicious surface chemistry to generate the fully exfoliated nickel hydroxide single layers is explored to be the key for controllable growth of ultrathin platinum nanowires with diameters of about 1.8 nm. Impressively, this hybrid nanomaterial exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline solution, which outperforms currently reported catalysts, and the obviously improved catalytic stability. We believe that this work may lead towards the development of singlelayered metal hydroxide-based hybrid materials for applications in catalysis and energy conversion.

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A heterogeneous catalyst made of well-defined Co3 O4 hexagonal platelets with varied exposed facets is coupled with [Ru(bpy)3 ]Cl2 photosensitizers to effectively and efficiently reduce CO2 under visible-light irradiation. Systematic investigation based on both experiment and theory discloses that the exposed {112} facets are crucial for activating CO2 molecules, giving rise to significant enhancement of photocatalytic CO2 reduction efficiency.

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is one of the key steps in clean and efficient energy conversion techniques such as in fuel cells and metal-air batteries; however, several disadvantages of current ORRs including the kinetically sluggish process and expensive catalysts hinder mass production of these devices. Herein, we develop carbonized nanoparticles, which are derived from monodisperse nanoscale metal organic frameworks (MIL-88B-NH3), as the high performance ORR catalysts. The onset potential and the half-wave potential for the ORR at these carbonized nanoparticles is up to 1.03 and 0.92 V (vs RHE) in 0.1 M KOH solution, respectively, which represents the best ORR activity of all the non-noble metal catalysts reported so far. Furthermore, when used as the cathode of the alkaline direct fuel cell, the power density obtained with the carbonized nanoparticles reaches 22.7 mW/cm2, 1.7 times higher than the commercial Pt/C catalysts.

Beyond conventional porous materials, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have aroused great interest in the construction of nanocatalysts with the characteristics of catalytically active nanoparticles (NPs) confined into the cavities/channels of MOFs or surrounded by MOFs. The advantages of adopting MOFs as the encapsulating matrix are multifold: uniform and long‐range ordered cavities can effectively promote the mass transfer and diffusion of substrates and products, while the diverse metal nodes and tunable organic linkers may enable outstanding synergy functions with the encapsulated active NPs. Herein, some key issues related to MOFs for catalysis are discussed. Then, state‐of‐the art progress in the encapsulation of catalytically active NPs by MOFs as well as their synergy functions for enhanced catalytic performance in the fields of thermo‐, photo‐, and electrocatalysis are summarized. Notably, encapsulation‐structured nanocatalysts exhibit distinct advantages over conventional supported catalysts, especially in terms of the catalytic selectivity and stability. Finally, challenges and future developments in MOF‐based encapsulation‐structured nanocatalysts are proposed. The aim is to deliver better insight into the design of well‐defined nanocatalysts with atomically accurate structures and high performance in challenging reactions.

A novel and general method is proposed to construct three-dimensional graphene/metal oxide nanoparticle hybrids. For the first time, it is demonstrated that this graphene-based composite with open pore structures can be used as the high-performance capacitive deionization (CDI) electrode materials, which outperform currently reported materials. This work will offer a promising way to develop highly effective CDI electrode materials.

A general and effective approach was proposed to fabricate a new family of Co-based bimetallic phosphide ultrathin nanosheets for highly-efficient oxygen evolution.