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Bismuth‐based materials have emerged as promising catalysts in the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to formate. However, the reasons for the reconstruction of Bi‐based precursors to form bismuth nanosheets are still puzzling, especially the formation of defective bismuth sites. Herein, we prepare bismuth nanosheets with vacancy‐rich defects (V‐Bi NS) by rapidly reconstructing Bi19Cl3S27 under negative potential. Theoretical analysis reveals that the introduction of chlorine induces the generation of intrinsic electric field in the precursor, thereby increasing the electron transfer rate and further promoting the metallization of trivalent bismuth. Meanwhile, experimental tests verify that Bi19Cl3S27 has a faster reconstruction rate than Bi2S3. The formed V‐Bi NS exhibits up to 96 % HCOO− Faraday efficiency and 400 mA cm−2 HCOO− partial current densities, and its electrochemical active surface area normalized formate current density and yield are 2.2 times higher than those of intact bismuth nanosheets (I‐Bi NS). Density functional theory calculations indicate that bismuth vacancies with electron‐rich aggregation reduce the activation energy of CO2 to *CO2− radicals and stabilize the adsorption of the key intermediate *OCHO, thus facilitating the reaction kinetics of formate production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing amorphous/intermetallic (A/IMC) heterophase structures by breaking the highly ordered IMC phase with disordered amorphous phase is an effective way to improve the electrocatalytic performance of noble metal‐based IMC electrocatalysts because of the optimized electronic structure and abundant heterophase boundaries as active sites. In this study, we report the synthesis of ultrathin A/IMC PtPbBi nanosheets (NSs) for boosting hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and alcohol oxidation reactions. The resulting A/IMC PtPbBi NSs exhibit a remarkably low overpotential of only 25 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for the HER in an acidic electrolyte, together with outstanding stability for 100 h. In addition, the PtPbBi NSs show high mass activities for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) and ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR), which are 13.2 and 14.5 times higher than those of commercial Pt/C, respectively. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the synergistic effect of amorphous/intermetallic components and multimetallic composition facilitate the electron transfer from the catalyst to key intermediates, thus improving the catalytic activity of MOR. This work establishes a novel pathway for the synthesis of heterophase two‐dimensional nanomaterials with high electrocatalytic performance across a wide range of electrochemical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new complex, Ni(C 22 H 26 N 2 O 10 S 2 )·2CH 3 OH, with a sexidentate (N 2 O 4 ) symmetric bis-Schiff base ligand (C 22 H 26 N 2 O 10 S 2 = 1,2-bis(2-methoxy-6-formylphenoxy)ethane-2-aminoethane-sulfonic acid) has been synthesized and characterized by physico-chemical and spectroscopic methods. The X-ray crystal structure shows that the Ni(II) atom of the complex is six-coordinated by two nitrogens from C N groups, two oxygens from ether groups and two hydroxyl oxygens from sulfonic acid groups in the mono-ligand, forming a distorted octahedral geometry. Theoretical study of the complex is carried out by density functional theory (DFT) method and the B3LYP method employing the 6-3l+G* basis set. Moreover, the complex proved to be good candidate for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]