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Grounding on self-determination theory, this study proposes that job characteristics (task variety and skill variety) enhance employees' creativity through thriving at work. It also aims to examine the boundary condition of managerial coaching for the link between job characteristics and thriving. A time-lagged dyadic data collected from 313 frontline hospitality individuals' analyses performed through AMOS and PROCESS macro show that job characteristics promote individuals' thriving and thriving affects individuals' creativity positively. Skill variety as compared to task variety was found to be more strongly affecting thriving at work. Thriving mediates job characteristics and creativity. Moreover, managerial coaching significantly moderates the effects of job characteristics on thriving. This study supports the self-determination perspective of job characteristics, thriving, creativity and managerial coaching in the Chinese hospitality sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amorphous nanomaterials with long-range disordered structures could possess distinct properties and promising applications, especially in catalysis, as compared with their conventional crystalline counterparts. It is imperative to achieve the controlled preparation of amorphous noble metal-based nanomaterials for the exploration of their phase-dependent applications. Here, we report a facile wet-chemical reduction strategy to synthesize various amorphous multimetallic Pd-based nanomaterials, including PdRu, PdRh, and PdRuRh. The phase-dependent catalytic performances of distinct Pd-based nanomaterials towards diverse catalytic applications have been demonstrated. Specifically, the usage of PdRu nanocatalysts with amorphous and crystalline face-centered cubic (fcc) phases can efficiently switch the ring-opening route of styrene oxide to obtain different products with high selectivity through alcoholysis reaction and hydrogenation reaction, respectively. Moreover, when used as an electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the synthesized amorphous PdRh nanocatalyst exhibits low overpotential and high turnover frequency values, outperforming its crystalline fcc counterpart and most of the reported Pd-based HER electrocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, metal-containing nanomaterials have attracted increasing interests owing to their intriguing physicochemical properties and various promising applications. Recent research has revealed that the phase of metal-containing nanomaterials could significantly affect their properties and functions. In particular, nanomaterials with amorphous phase, which possess long-range disordered atomic arrangements, and the amorphous/crystalline heterophase nanostructures comprised of both amorphous and crystalline phases, have exhibited superior performance in various applications, e.g., catalysis and energy storage. In this review, a brief overview of the recent progress on the wet-chemical synthesis and applications of amorphous and amorphous/crystalline heterophase metal-containing nanomaterials has been provided. Subsequently, on the basis of different categories of metal-containing nanomaterials, including metals, metal alloys, and metal compounds, their synthetic routes and promising applications will be highlighted. Finally, current challenges and some personal perspectives in this emerging research field will be proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly dispersed Au nanoparticles supported on Ni–Al mixed metal oxides (Au/NiAl-MMO) were prepared by a facile method, which is significantly efficient for the aerobic oxidation of ethyl lactate using authentic air as the oxidant, achieving 72.6% ethyl lactate conversion and 88.3% selectivity to ethyl pyruvate at 240 °C in a continuous fixed-bed reactor. The catalyst retained its catalytic performance during a long-term stability test. Characterization and experimental studies on the kinetic dependence sequence of the reactants and elementary reaction steps confirmed that the Au/NiAl-MMO catalyst followed the Mars–van Krevelen mechanism, with the activation of O2 as the elementary step. The quasi in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy spectra demonstrated that the active sites in the Au/NiAl-MMO catalyst were Au nanoparticles. This work may provide a novel technique for developing more efficient supported metal catalysts for the aerobic oxidation of ethyl lactate using authentic air as the oxidant. Highly dispersed Au nanoparticle catalyst was facilely prepared for the efficient catalytic oxidation of ethyl lactate with authentic air. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are promising power sources due to the low cost and abundance of battery-grade sodium resources, while practical SIBs suffer from intrinsically sluggish diffusion kinetics and severe volume changes of electrode materials. Metal-organic framework (MOFs) derived carbonaceous metal compound offer promising applications in electrode materials due to their tailorable composition, nanostructure, chemical and physical properties. Here, we fabricated hierarchical MOF-derived carbonaceous nickel selenides with bi-phase composition for enhanced sodium storage capability. As MOF formation time increases, the pyrolyzed and selenized products gradually transform from a single-phase Ni3Se4 into bi-phase NiSex then single-phase NiSe2, with concomitant morphological evolution from solid spheres into hierarchical urchin-like yolk-shell structures. As SIBs anodes, bi-phase NiSex@C/CNT-10h (10 h of hydrothermal synthesis time) exhibits a high specific capacity of 387.1 mAh/g at 0.1 A/g, long cycling stability of 306.3 mAh/g at a moderately high current density of 1 A/g after 2,000 cycles. Computational simulation further proves the lattice mismatch at the phase boundary facilitates more interstitial space for sodium storage. Our understanding of the phase boundary engineering of transformed MOFs and their morphological evolution is conducive to fabricate novel composites/hybrids for applications in batteries, catalysis, sensors, and environmental remediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]