Highly active and low-cost catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are crucial for the development of efficient water splitting. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets possess unique physical and chemical properties, which make them promising candidates for HER. Herein, we reported a facile, effective, and scalable strategy by a deposition-precipitation method to fabricate metal-doped (Fe, Co, Ni) molybdenum sulfide with a few layers on carbon black as noble metal-free electrocatalysts for HER. The CoMoS phase after thermal annealing in Co-doped MoS2 plays a crucial role for the enhanced HER. The optimized Co-doped MoS2 catalyst shows superior HER performance with a high exchange current density of 0.03 mA·cm(-2), low onset potential of 90 mV, and small Tafel slope of 50 mV·dec(-1), which also exhibits excellent stability of 10000 cycles with negligible loss of the cathodic current. The superior HER activity originates from the synergistically structural and electronic modulations between MoS2 and Co ions, abundant defects in the active edge sites, as well as the good balance between active sites and electronic conductivity. Thanks to their ease of synthesis, low cost, and high activity, the Co-doped MoS2 catalysts appear to be promising HER catalysts for electrochemical water splitting.

The shape-controlled synthesis of multicomponent metal nanocrystals (NCs) bounded by high-index facets (HIFs) is of significant importance in the design and synthesis of high-activity catalysts. We report herein the preparation of Pt-Ni alloy NCs by tuning their shape from concave-nanocubic (CNC) to nanocubic and hexoctahedral (HOH). Owing to the synergy of the HIFs and the electronic effect of the Pt-Ni alloy, the as-prepared CNC and HOH Pt-Ni alloy NCs exhibited excellent catalytic properties for the electrooxidation of methanol and formic acid, as well as for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).

Bimetallic catalysts are of great importance due to their unique catalytic properties. However, their conventional synthesis requires tedious multistep procedures and prolonged synthetic time, and the resulting bimetallics usually disperse unevenly and show poor stability. It is challenging to develop a facile and step-economic synthetic methodology for highly efficient bimetallic catalysts. In this study, we report an elegant metal complex-involved multicomponent assembly route to highly efficient Ru–Ni bimetallics in ordered mesoporous carbons (OMC). The fabrication of composition-tuned Ru–Ni bimetallics in OMC (Ru x Ni1–x –OMC, x = 0.5–0.9) was facilely realized via in situ construction of CTAB-directed cubic Ia3d chitosan-ruthenium–nickel–silica mesophase before pyrolysis and silica removal. The resulting Ru x Ni1–x –OMC materials are in-depth characterized with X-ray diffraction, N2 adsorption–desorption, transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectrum, and X-ray absorption fine structure. This facile fabrication method renders homogeneously dispersed Ru–Ni bimetallics embedded in the mesoporous carbonaceous framework and creates a highly active and stable Ru0.9Ni0.1–OMC catalyst for the hydrogenation of levulinic acid (LA) to prepare γ-valerolactone (GVL), a biomass-derived platform molecule with wide application in the preparation of renewable chemicals and liquid transportation fuels. A high TOF (>2000 h–1) was obtained, and the Ru0.9Ni0.1–OMC catalyst could be used at least 15 times without obvious loss of its catalytic performance.

Shape-controlled synthesis of multicomponent metal nanocrystals (NCs) bounded by high-index facets (HIFs) is of significant importance in the design and synthesis of highly active catalysts. It is a highly challenging task to design and synthesize ternary alloy NCs with HIFs due to the formidable difficulties in controlling the nucleation/growth kinetics of NCs in the presence of three metal precursors with different reduction potentials. We report herein, for the first time, the preparation of Pt–Ni–Cu alloy NCs by tuning their shape from crossed, dendritic, concave nanocubic (CNC) to rough octahedral (ROH) NCs through a facile one-pot solvothermal synthesis method. Specifically, the crossed and CNC Pt–Ni–Cu alloy NCs are bounded by high-index {hk0} facets and ROH with rich lattice defects. The electrocatalytic activities of these Pt–Ni–Cu alloy NCs toward methanol and formic acid oxidation were tested. It was shown that these Pt–Ni–Cu alloy NCs exhibited enhanced activity and stability compared to commercial Pt black and Pt/C catalysts as well as previous Pt–Ni and Pt CNCs under the same reaction conditions, demonstrating the superior electrocatalytic activity of Pt–Ni–Cu ternary alloys compared to monometal and binary Pt–Ni NCs. Surprisingly, we have found that the Pt–Ni–Cu ROH NCs have exhibited a higher specific catalytic activity than the crossed and CNC Pt–Ni–Cu alloy NCs with HIFs. The electronic and structure effects have been extensively discussed to shed light on the excellent electrocatalytic performance of Pt–Ni–Cu ROH NCs.

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CeO2-CuO nanorods with mesoporous structure were synthesized by a facile and mild strategy, which involves an interfacial reaction between Ce2(SO4)3 precursor and NaOH ethanol solution at room temperature to obtain mesoporous CeO2 nanorods, followed by a solvothermal treatment of as-prepared CeO2 and Cu(CH3COO)2. Upon solvothermal treatment, CuO species is highly dispersed onto the CeO2 nanorod surface to form CeO2-CuO composites, which still maintain the mesoporous feature. A preliminary CO catalytic oxidation study demonstrated that the CeO2-CuO samples exhibited strikingly high catalytic activity, and a high CO conversion rate was observed without obvious loss in activity even after thermal treatment at a high temperature of 500 °C. Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR) analysis revealed that there is a strong interaction between CeO2 and CuO. Moreover, it was found that the introduction of CuO species into CeO2 generates oxygen vacancies, which is highly likely to be responsible for high catalytic activity toward CO oxidation of the mesoporous CeO2-CuO nanorods.

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