The refinement of XRD patterns only provides the average structure parameters for the alloying materials because of the symmetric protection. Raman vibrational modes can append the detailed information about the bond length and structure. The refinements of XRD patterns for Bi alloying Cs2AgInCl6 revealed the strong structure distortion with the enlarged octahedron of In­(Bi)­Cl6 and the contracted octahedron of AgCl6 with the increasing Bi. Raman spectra supported the expanded octahedron of InCl6 and the reduced octahedron of AgCl6 but identified the anomalous shortening bond length of Bi–Cl with the increasing Bi. These distorting octahedrons break parity forbidden transition, modify Huang–Rhys factor, and result in the maximum values at 30% Bi alloying and the same variation trend for both photoluminescence and Huang–Rhys factor with the increasing Bi alloying.

Porous membranes/filters that can remove airborne fine particulates, for example, PM2.5, with high efficiency at low energy consumption are of significant interest. Herein, we report on the fabrication of a new class of unusual superior air filters with ultrahigh efficiency and an interesting antibacterial functionality. We use atomic layer deposition (ALD) to uniformly seed ZnO on the surface of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) matrix, and then synthesize well-aligned ZnO nanorods with tunable widths and lengths from the seeds under hydrothermal conditions. The presence of ZnO nanorods reduces the effective pore sizes of the ePTFE filters at little expense of energy consumption. As a consequence, the filters exhibit exceptional dust removal efficiencies greater than 99.9999% with much lower energy consumption than conventional filters. Significantly, the presence of ZnO nanorods strongly inhibits the propagation of both Gram positive and negative bacteria on the filters. Therefore, the functionalized filters can potentially overcome the inherent limitation in the trade-off effect and imply their superiority for controlling indoor air quality.

Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), as an effective method to produce green hydrogen, is greatly impeded by inefficient mass transfer, i.e., bubble adhesion on electrode, bubble dispersion in the vicinity of electrode, and poor dissolved H 2 diffusion, which results in blocked electrocatalytic area and large H 2 concentration overpotential. Here, we report a superaerophilic/superaerophobic (SAL/SAB) cooperative electrode to efficiently promote bubble transfer by asymmetric Laplace pressure and accelerate dissolved H 2 diffusion through reducing diffusion distance. Benefiting from the enhanced mass transfer, the overpotential for the SAL/SAB cooperative electrode at −10 mA cm −2 is only −19 mV, compared to −61 mV on the flat Pt electrode. By optimizing H 2 SO 4 concentration, the SAL/SAB cooperative electrode can achieve ultrahigh current density (−1867 mA cm −2 ) at an overpotential of −500 mV. We can envision that the SAL/SAB cooperative strategy is an effective method to improve HER efficiency and stimulate the understanding of various gas-involved processes.

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