Synthesis of highly branched hollow trimetallic PdAgCu nanoparticles.

An aqueous, room temperature, and surfactant-less synthetic route based on galvanic replacement and co-reduction is reported to yield PdAgCu nanoparticles (NPs) with a high density of sharp and branched tips. The PdAgCu NPs are of high-purity, uniform size and more than 90% of them adopt branched tips. Besides, the PdAgCu NPs exhibit hollow interiors, well-alloyed nature, and a tuneable localized surface plasmon resonance peak in the near infrared region.

Shifting Oxygen Charge Towards Octahedral Metal: A Way to Promote Water Oxidation on Cobalt Spinel Oxides.

Cobalt spinel oxides are a class of promising transition metal (TM) oxides for catalyzing oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Their catalytic activity depends on the electronic structure. In a spinel oxide lattice, each oxygen anion is shared amongst its four nearest transition metal cations, of which one is located within the tetrahedral interstices and the remaining three cations are in the octahedral interstices.

Heterostructured Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Under Alkaline Conditions.

The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a half-cell reaction in water electrolysis for producing hydrogen gas. In industrial water electrolysis, the HER is often conducted in alkaline media to achieve higher stability of the electrode materials. However, the kinetics of the HER in alkaline medium is slow relative to that in acid because of the low concentration of protons in the former.

Understanding Fundamentals and Reaction Mechanisms of Electrode Materials for Na-Ion Batteries.

Development of efficient, affordable, and sustainable energy storage technologies has become an area of interest due to the worsening environmental issues and rising technological dependence on Li-ion batteries. Na-ion batteries (NIBs) have been receiving intensive research efforts during the last few years. Owing to their potentially low cost and relatively high energy density, NIBs are promising energy storage devices, especially for stationary applications.

Three-dimensional skeleton networks of graphene wrapped polyaniline nanofibers: an excellent structure for high-performance flexible solid-state supercapacitors.

Thin, robust, lightweight, and flexible supercapacitors (SCs) have aroused growing attentions nowadays due to the rapid development of flexible electronics. Graphene-polyaniline (PANI) hybrids are attractive candidates for high performance SCs. In order to utilize them in real devices, it is necessary to improve the capacitance and the structure stability of PANI.

Surface Segregation in Bimetallic Nanoparticles: A Critical Issue in Electrocatalyst Engineering.

Bimetallic nanoparticles are a class of important electrocatalyst. They exhibit a synergistic effect that critically depends on the surface composition, which determines the surface properties and the adsorption/desorption behavior of the reactants and intermediates during catalysis. The surface composition can be varied, as nanoparticles are exposed to certain environments through surface segregation.

Synthesis and electrocatalytic properties of PtBi nanoplatelets and PdBi nanowires.

We have demonstrated a one-pot, facile and rapid strategy to synthesize novel PtBi nanoplatelets (NPLs) and PdBi nanowires (NWs) with controlled shape, size, and composition in the presence of oleylamine (OAm) and NH4Br. In contrast to the conventional face centered cubic (fcc) structure of Pt-based NPs, PtBi possesses a chemically ordered intermetallic hexagonal close packed (hcp) structure. Using this uniaxial crystal structural character of PtBi, we succeed in synthesizing two-dimensional (2-D) PtBi NPLs.

Octahedral Fe3O4 nanoparticles and their assembled structures.

Octahedral Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles, showing ferrimagnetic behavior, were synthesised by a facile route and due to their monodispersity and anisotropic shape the nanoparticles self-assemble to superlattices with well-defined orientation.