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A one step facile method is proposed to synthesize Co3O4/BCNO composites as efficient and stable catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction in Zn–air batteries.

Electrocatalytic water splitting is a promising technology for large-scale hydrogen production. However, it requires efficient catalysts to overcome the large overpotentials in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we report a novel heterostructure catalyst Co9S8/Cu2S on copper foam (Co9S8/Cu2S/CF) with multistep impregnation and electrodeposition. Due to the strong interfacial interaction, the interfacial electrons transfer from Co sites to S sites, which promote the adsorption of oxygen-containing intermediates, water molecules, as well as the dissociation of water molecules. Therefore, the heterostructure catalyst exhibits low overpotentials of 195 mV for OER and 165 mV for HER at 10 mA cm-2, respectively. Moreover, it only needs 1.6 V to realize water splitting at 10 mA cm-2 in a two-electrode cell. This work provides an efficient method to tailor the surface electronic structure through specific morphological design and construct a heterostructure interface to achieve alkaline water splitting.

The design and synthesis of bifunctional heterostructure catalysts is significant to achieve excellent water electrolysis performance. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to explore the exact active centers of the bifunctional catalysts in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, a bifunctional catalyst of ultra-thin porous δ-FeOOH modified Ni3S2 nanosheets exhibits a relatively low overpotential of 187 mV for the OER and 106 mV for the HER at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, respectively. In addition, the overall water splitting unit provides a potential of 1.525 V at 10 mA cm−2 and maintains a performance of 96.85% after 24 h continuous testing. Multispectral analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations disclose that the constructed interface between δ-FeOOH and Ni3S2 has two functional groups of Ni–O–Fe and Fe–S bonds to boost the OER and HER performance, respectively, thereby accelerating the overall electrochemical water splitting process in alkaline solution.

In this paper, we reported a one-step and facile method to prepare boron carbon oxynitride (BCNO) nanosheet and titanium dioxide (TiO2) loaded BCNO nanocomposites. The BCNO nanosheet not only can widen the absorption range of TiO2 from ultraviolet to visible region, but also increase the photodegradation ability. The TiO2/BCNO nanocomposites have excellent photo-degradation performance on organic dyes. The TiO2-2/BCNO-2 nanocomposite can degrade almost all of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RhB) during 50 and 300 min under visible light irradiation, respectively. In addition, the photocatalytic mechanism can be explained by the electron transition process between TiO2 and BCNO.

Electrocatalytic water splitting is a promising technology for large-scale hydrogen production. However, it requires efficient catalysts to overcome the large overpotentials in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we report a novel heterostructure catalyst Co

Ligand protected noble metal nanoclusters have unique physical and chemical properties and the effects of metal nanoclusters on photoluminescence and energy transfer process for fluorescence molecules are still unclear. In this work, we prepared silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs) with different emission wavelengths (blue, green and red emission) and investigated the energy transfer process between Ag NCs and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC). The photoluminescence of FITC can be regulated by the Ag NCs due to various electrons transfer and energy transfer processes between Ag NCs and FITC. The FITC can serve as electrons donor or acceptor which determines the electrons transfer direction between FITC and Ag NCs with different emissions. Astonishingly, the photobleaching of FITC can be effectively inhibited after interacting with Ag NCs, which will surely be of profound significance to the application of FITC.