The development of highly active and stable electrocatalysts for ethanol electroxidation is of decisive importance to the successful commercialization of direct ethanol fuel cells. Despite great efforts invested over the past decade, their progress has been notably slower than expected. In this work, the facile solution synthesis of 2D PdAg alloy nanodendrites as a high-performance electrocatalyst is reported for ethanol electroxidation. The reaction is carried out via the coreduction of Pd and Ag precursors in aqueous solution with the presence of octadecyltrimethylammonium chloride as the structural directing agent. Final products feature small thickness (5-7 nm) and random in-plane branching with enlarged surface areas and abundant undercoordinated sites. They exhibit enhanced electrocatalytic activity (large specific current ≈2600 mA mgPd-1) and excellent operation stability (as revealed from both the cycling and chronoamperometric tests) for ethanol electroxidation. Control experiments show that the improvement comes from the combined electronic and structural effects.

More than skin deep: A selective silica coating on the ends and side of gold nanorods enables the successful selective overgrowth of palladium, gold, platinum, and silver on these surfaces. As a result, eight types of unprecedented metal homo‐ and heterostructures are produced.

Regulation of electron-electron correlation has been found to be a new effective way to selectively control carrier concentration, which is a crucial step toward improving thermoelectric properties. The pure electronic behavior successfully stabilized the nonambient metallic VO(2)(R) to room temperature, giving excellent thermoelectric performance among the simple oxides with wider working temperature ranges.

Colloidal gold nanocups are synthesized through single-vertex-initiated gold deposition on PbS nanooctahedrons and subsequent selective dissolution of the PbS component. They possess strong magnetic plasmon resonance and exhibit remarkable orientation-dependent plasmonic properties when deposited on flat substrates. They can also effectively couple s-polarized light into the interfacial region between the nanocup and substrate.