A morphological effect of Au/CeO2 catalysts in 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) oxidation.

Magnetoelectric composite thin films hold substantial promise for applications in novel multifunctional devices. However, there are presently shortcomings for both the extensively studied bilayer epitaxial (2-2) and vertically architectured nanocomposite (1-3) film systems, restricting their applications. Here we design a novel growth strategy to fabricate an architectured nanocomposite heterostructure with magnetic quasiparticles (0) embedded in a ferroelectric film matrix (3) by alternately growing (2-2) and (1-3) layers within the film. The new heteroepitaxial films not only overcome the clamping effect from substrate, but also significantly suppress the leakage current paths through the ferromagnetic phase. We demonstrate, by focusing on switching characteristics of the piezoresponse, that the heterostructure shows magnetic field dependence of piezoelectricity due to the improved coupling enabled by good connectivity amongst the piezoelectric and magnetostrictive phases. This new architectured magnetoelectric heterostructures may open a new avenue for applications of magnetoelectric films in micro-devices.

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Enhanced FTO catalyst performance and catalyst stability are achieved over a graphene-like carbon encapsulated iron carbide catalyst, which is prepared by a facile pyrolysis method.

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Focused ion beam patterning is a powerful technique for guiding the growth of ordered hexagonal porous anodic alumina. This study shows that, with the guidance of the focused ion beam patterning, hexagonal porous anodic alumina with interpore distances from 200 to 425 nm can be fabricated at 140 V in 0.3 M phosphoric acid. When the interpore distance is increased to 500 nm, alternating diameter nanopore arrays are synthesized with the creation and growth of new small pores at the junctions of three large neighboring pores. Moreover, alternating diameter nanopore arrays in hexagonal arrangement are fabricated by focused ion beam patterning guided anodization. Interpore distance is an important parameter affecting the arrangement of alternating diameter nanopore arrays. Different types of novel patterns are obtained by designing different focused ion beam concave arrays. The fundamental understanding of the process is discussed.

In this work, manganese well-dispersed on Fe3O4 microsphere (Mn–Fe3O4) catalyst was synthesized. It exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the direct conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into light olefins. A CO2 conversion of 44.7% with high selectivity of light olefin (46.2%, yield of 18.7%), high O/P ratio (6.5), and low selectivity of CO (9.4%) was obtained over the 10Mn–Fe3O4 catalyst. The Mn–Fe3O4 catalyst was studied by XRD, SEM, (HR)­TEM, STEM–EDS, H2-TPR, and CO2-TPD. The result indicated that the manganese promoter could facilitate the adsorption of CO2 and the activation of CO bonds as well as inhibit the secondary hydrogenation. This work offered a novel Fe-based catalyst system to the utilization of CO2 and an understanding in promoting CO bond activation in the first step of CO2 hydrogenation to hydrocarbon reaction.