In this paper, we develop a simple vesicle-assisted chemical reduction approach for synthesizing hollow Ni-Co-B nanospheres. With various characterization techniques, the resulting Ni-Co-B nanospheres are identified as amorphous alloys with a hollow chamber. Coexistence of Ni II and Co II species plays a significant role in fabricating hollow nanospheric structures, because only solid nanoparticles can be obtained in the presence of a mono-metallic precursor. During liquid-phase hydrogenation of 2-ethyl-2-hexenaldehyde, hollow Ni-Co-B catalyst displays significant bi-site catalysis from bimetals and delivers much greater activity as well as better selectivity than associated with the dense Ni-Co-B catalyst. Additionally, this catalyst is also easily handled in liquid-phase reactions due to its lower density and magnetic property. The material design concept presented in this work opens a new avenue for the development of hollow non-noble metallic nanospheres and will draw more attention in the foreseeable future.

In this paper, we develop a facile strategy for fabricating a yolk-shell structured catalytic system that consists of a core made of Ru supported on mesoporous carbon, which is encaged within a silica shell that has ordered radial mesochannels. A region-selective etching mechanism for the formation of the yolk-shell nanoarchitectures is proposed based on the stronger adsorption ability of the carbon core for etching agent than that of the silica shell for etching agent. By combining such material with amyloglucosidase, one-pot hydrolysis-hydrogenation of dextrin to sorbitol can be conducted, delivering enhanced efficiency and showing great promise for biomass conversion applications.

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