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Palladium nanoparticles were uniformly anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes with a three-dimensional network structure (denoted as Pd/3DNCNTs) through a facile, surfactant-free, and green approach with ethanol as the reducing agent. As a robust catalyst for the ethanol electrocatalytic oxidation reaction (EOR), Pd/3DNCNTs exhibit superior improved electrocatalytic activity, accelerated kinetics, and robust stability, mainly attributed to the unique architecture features of the 3DNCNTs. The results of this part of the work reveal that the Pd/3DNCNTs with an infusive electrochemical property for EOR are promising for direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) and various other applications in electrochemistry. Additionally, the green approach probably provides some new ideas for the design of other new catalysts for fuel cells.

The development of efficient and environmentally friendly catalysts for oxidative reaction is of great importance in applied catalysis. In this work, a simple and environmentally benign approach for highly selective preparation of ε-caprolactone by oxidation of cyclohexanone has been carried out, which employed metal-free mesoporous silica (mSiO2) nanorods as catalyst under atmospheric pressure. The metal-free silica catalyst was applied for the first time in the Baeyer–Villiger (B–V) oxidation reaction. It showed efficient catalytic performance for the B–V oxidation of various cyclic ketones and aliphatic ketones with O2/benzaldehyde as oxidant. The catalyst could be easily separated from the reaction system by filtration and reused several times without significance loss of activity. Moreover, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra of the reaction were obtained, indicating the existence of benzoyloxyl radical. The mechanism study of the reaction demonstrated that the super large surface area diluted the concentration of radicals and the adsorption of radicals could protect the radical species from inhibition.

A highly efficient and robust metal-free catalyst (N-TCNT@NGS), with a sandwich structure of 1D nitrogen-doped truncated carbon nanotubes inserted between 2D nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets, was synthesized by a facile and green hydrothermal method.

In this work, we propose a regrowth strategy to prepare a photocathode with CuBi₂O₄ coating on Zn-doped CuBi₂O₄, followed by oxygen vacancy modulation to facilitate interfacial hydrogen evolution reactions.

A new catalyst, consisting of ultrafine Pd–P alloyed nanoparticles (NPs) anchored on polydopamine functionalized graphene (Pd–P/PDA-GS), was fabricated by a green, facile and surfactant free method for ethanol electrocatalytic oxidation reaction (EOR).

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The design and controlled synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials have been widely studied because the properties and functions of nanomaterials are highly dependent on their sizes, shapes, and dimensionalities. For instance, 2D metal nanosheets (2DMNSs) have attracted a significant amount of attention owing to their interesting properties, which are absent in corresponding bulk counterparts, and they have been confirmed to have potential applications in electrocatalysis, optics, and biomedicine. However, because of the close-packed structures of metals, the large-scale fabrication of 2DMNSs is challenging. In this review, we have outlined the research progress in the field of 2DMNSs, including the typical synthesis approaches and newly developed methods, as well as promising applications of the materials reported in recent years. Moreover, some preliminary and promising strategies to further improve the properties of 2DMNSs and some insights for the development of the field have been included.