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Environmental degradation and energy constraint are important risks to long-term sustainability in the modern world. Water splitting is a vital approach for environmentally friendly and sustainable energy storage, providing a clean way to produce hydrogen without pollutants. Preparing a catalyst that is active, bifunctional, and durable for water splitting is a difficult task. We addressed the difficulty by creating a bifunctional heterogeneous catalyst, MoS 2 /rGO, with an ideal weight percentage of 5 wt% by a hydrothermal process. The optimized sample showed exceptional electrocatalytic activity, requiring an overpotential of 242 mV and 120 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm -2 in the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) and Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER). Furthermore, our synthesized catalyst was validated for its exceptional water-splitting capacity, with the optimized sample showing low Tafel slope values of 59 mV dec -1 for HER and 171 mV dec -1 for OER. The significant OER and HER activity seen in the 5 wt% MoS 2 /rGO hybrid, compared to other hybrids, is due to the many catalytic active sites that aid in charge and electron transport, as well as the synergistic interaction between MoS 2 and rGO., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Designing of non-noble, cost-effective, sustainable catalysts for water splitting is essential for hydrogen production. In this research work, ZIF-67, g-C 3 N 4 , and their composite (1, 3, 5, 6, 8 wt% g-C 3 N 4 @ZIF-67) are synthesized, and various techniques, XRD, FTIR, SEM, EDX and BET are used to examine their morphological properties for electrochemical water-splitting. The linkage of ZIF-67 with g-C 3 N 4 synergistically improves the electrochemical kinetics. An appropriate integration of g-C 3 N 4 in ZIF-67 MOF improves the charge transfer between the electrode and electrolyte and makes it a suitable option for electrochemical applications. In alkaline media, the composite of ZIF-67 MOF with g-C 3 N 4 over a Ni-foam exhibits a superior catalyst activity for water splitting application. Significantly, the 3 wt% g-C 3 N 4 @ZIF67 composite material reveals remarkable results with low overpotential values of -176 mV@10 mA cm -2 , 152 mV@10 mA cm -2 for HER and OER. The catalyst remained stable for 24 h without distortion. The 3 wt% composite also shows a commendable performance for overall water-splitting with a voltage yield of 1.34 v@10 mA cm -2 . The low contact angle (54.4°) proves the electrocatalyst's hydrophilic nature. The results of electrochemical water splitting illustrated that 3 wt% g-C 3 N 4 @ZIF-67 is an electrically conductive, stable, and hydrophilic-nature catalyst and is suggested to be a promising candidate for electrochemical water-splitting application., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

High-efficiency, sustainable, non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts with bifunctional catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are essential for metal-air batteries. In this research, a bifunctional electrocatalyst is developed by synthesizing a novel nanoporous vanadium oxide/carbon composite (NVC-900) through pyrolysis of a highly efficient vanadium metal-organic framework, MIL-101 (V). The fabrication process was conveniently carried out by pyrolyzing the synthesized MIL-101 (V) at 900 °C, producing vanadium oxide nanoparticles embedded in the extensively distributed pores of the carbon network. The evenly distributed nanopores substantially improve the performance of the efficient electrocatalyst for both the oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reactions (ORR/OER) by increasing surface area and facilitating access to stable catalytic active sites. The unique structure was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). For oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), the electrocatalyst established a promising limiting current density ( J L ) of 5.2 mA cm -2 at 1600 rpm at an onset potential of 1.18 V and a half-wave potential of 0.82 V, and for OER, a current density of 10 mA cm -2 was delivered at a potential of 1.48 V. In comparison to 10% Pt/C, the synthesized bifunctional electrocatalyst being almost equally active towards bifunctional activity, showed much better long-term cyclic stability. The one-step thermal pyrolysis strategy to synthesize the nanoporous functional material and the proposed electrocatalytic material's long-term bifunctional activity and durability make it an ideal fit for next-generation portable green metal-air batteries., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Semiconductor-based photocatalysts have attracted a lot of interest due to their environmental friendliness and high stability. Waste cooking oil can be converted to biodiesel by the process of transesterification. A TiO 2 /g-C 3 N 4 combination was prepared by using a wet impregnation process. The photocatalyst was analyzed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDX), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis). For effective transesterification, WCO was collected and acid-esterified to reduce the FFA concentration (below 3%). For the transesterification reaction, esterified WCO was used and the reactions were carried out under solar irradiation at 60 °C with an oil to methanol ratio of 1 : 9 and stirred for 1 hour, using different TiO 2 /g-C 3 N 4 catalysts (10, 20 & 30%) with different catalyst concentrations of 1%, 2% and 3%. The results showed that TiO 2 /20% g-C 3 N 4 with 2% catalyst concentration gives the highest yield of biodiesel production (89.5%) as compared to other catalyst concentrations used. In addition to (FTIR), additional fuel characteristics such as density, viscosity, flashpoint, acid value, and pH were tested to determine the quality of the generated biodiesel and were found to comply with fuel standards. With high stability and good catalytic activity, the synthesized composite TiO 2 /g-C 3 N 4 is a viable option for producing biodiesel from WCO., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)