This study reports a facile approach for the synthesis of horseradish peroxidise (HRP)-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers by self-assembly of HRP and copper phosphate (Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O) in aqueous solution. Several reaction parameters that affect the formation of the hybrid nanoflowers were investigated and a hierarchical flowerlike spherical structure with hundreds of nanopetals was obtained under the optimum synthetic conditions. The enzymatic activity of HRP embedded in hybrid naonflowers was evaluated based on the principle of HRP catalyzing the oxidation of o-phenylenediamine (OPD) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The results showed that 506% enhancement of enzymatic activity in the hybrid nanoflowers could be achieved compared with the free HRP in solution. Taking advantages of the structural feature with catalytic property, a nanoflower-based colorimetric platform was newly designed and applied for fast and sensitive visual detection of H2O2 and phenol. The limits of detection (LODs) for H2O2 and phenol were as low as 0.5 μM and 1.0 μM by the naked-eye visualization, which meet the requirements of detection of both analytes in clinical diagnosis and environmental water. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of low-level H2O2 in spiked human serum and phenol in sewage, respectively. The recoveries for all the determinations were higher than 92.6%. In addition, the hybrid nanoflowers exhibited excellent reusability and reproducibility in cycle analysis. These primary results demonstrate that the hybrid nanoflowers have a great potential for applications in biomedical and environmental chemistry.

Amorphous metal–organic frameworks (aMOFs) are an emerging family of attractive materials with great application potential, however aMOFs are usually prepared under harsh conditions and aMOFs with complex compositions and structures are rarely reported. In this work, an aMOF‐dominated nanocomposite (aMOF‐NC) with both structural and compositional complexity has been synthesized using a facile approach. A ligand‐competition amorphization mechanism is proposed based on experimental and density functional theory calculation results. The aMOF‐NC possesses a core–shell nanorod@nanosheet architecture, including a Fe‐rich Fe‐Co‐aMOF core and a Co‐rich Fe‐Co‐aMOF shell in the core–shell structured nanorod, and amorphous Co(OH)2 nanosheets as the outer layer. Benefiting from the structural and compositional heterogeneity, the aMOF‐NC demonstrates an excellent oxygen evolution reaction activity with a low overpotential of 249 mV at 10.0 mA cm−2 and Tafel slope of 39.5 mV dec−1.

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(730) high index faceted PtCu concave nanocube cocatalysts were designed for enhanced photocatalytic performance of C3N4–PtCu hybrid structures in the reduction of CO2 to CH4.

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A one-pot protocol for the construction of fluoroalkylated isoxazoles directly from commercially available amines and alkynes is described. The reaction is scalable, operationally simple, regioselective, mild, and tolerant of a broad range of functional groups. As such, it could be viewed as a "click synthesis" of fluoroalkylated isoxazoles. Preliminary mechanistic investigations reveal that the transformation involves an unprecedented Cu-catalyzed cascade sequence involving RCHN.

Photocatalytic conversion of CO to value-added chemicals, a potential route to addressing the depletion of fossil fuels and anthropogenic climate change, is greatly limited by the low-efficient semiconductor photocatalyst. The integration of cocatalyst with light-harvesting semiconductor is a promising approach to enhancing the photocatalytic performance in CO reduction reaction. The enhancement is greatly determined by the catalytic active sites on the surface of cocatalyst. Herein, we demonstrate that the photocatalytic performance in the CO reduction reaction is greatly promoted by twin defects engineered Pd cocatalyst. In this work, Pd nanoicosahedrons with twin defects were in situ grown on CN nanosheets, which effectively improve the photocatalytic performance in reduction of CO to CO and CH in comparison with Pd nanotetrahedrons without twin defects. It is proposed that the twin boundary (TB) terminations on the surface of Pd cocatalysts are highly catalytic active sites for CO reduction reaction. Based on the proposed mechanism, the photocatalytic activity and selectivity in CO reduction were further advanced through reducing the size of Pd icosahedral cocatalyst resulted from the increased surface density of TB terminations. The defect engineering on the surface of cocatalyst represents a novel route in realizing high-performance photocatalytic applications.