Highly Accessible Electrocatalyst with Formed Copper-Cluster Active Sites for Enhanced Nitrate-to-Ammonia Conversion.

Ammonia synthesis via nitrate electroreduction is more attractive and sustainable than the energy-extensive Haber-Bosch process and intrinsically sluggish nitrogen electroreduction. Herein, we have designed a single-site Cu catalyst on hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanocage support (Cu/hNCNC) for nitrate electroreduction, which achieves an ultrahigh ammonia yield rate (YR) of 99.4 mol h g (2.

A state-of-the-art review on biomass-derived carbon materials for supercapacitor applications: From precursor selection to design optimization.

Biomass-derived carbon materials have the characteristics of a wide range of precursor sources, controllable carbon nano-dimension, large specific surface area and abundant heteroatoms doping. At present, biomass-derived carbon materials have been widely used in electrochemical energy storage devices, especially the research and development of biomass-derived carbon materials for supercapacitors has become mature and in-depth. Therefore, it is of importance to summarize the advanced technologies and strategies for optimizing biomass-derived carbon materials for supercapacitors, which will effectively promote the further development of high-performance supercapacitors.

Loss-free pulverization by confining copper oxide inside hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanocages toward superb potassium-ion batteries.

Taking the advantages of hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanocages (hNCNCs) with nanocavities for encapsulation and multiscale micro-meso-macropores/high conductivity for mass/electron synergistic transportation, a conversion-type CuO anode material is confined inside hNCNCs for potassium storage. The so-obtained yolk-shelled CuO@hNCNC hybrids have tunable CuO contents in the range of 11.7-63.

Programmable Synthesis of High-Entropy Nanoalloys for Efficient Ethanol Oxidation Reaction.

Controllable synthesis of nanoscale high-entropy alloys (HEAs) with specific morphologies and tunable compositions is crucial for exploring advanced catalysts. The present strategies either have great difficulties to tailor the morphology of nanoscale HEAs or suffer from narrow elemental distributions and insufficient generality. To overcome the limitations of these strategies, here we report a robust template-directed synthesis to programmatically fabricate nanoscale HEAs with controllable compositions and structures via independently controlling the morphology and composition of HEA.

Coralloidal carbon-encapsulated CoP nanoparticles generated on biomass carbon as a high-rate and stable electrode material for lithium-ion batteries.

Architecture of electrode materials plays an important role in achieving favorable electrochemical performance via providing fast electronic transport pathway and shorten lithium ion diffusion distance. Herein, ultrafine CoP nanoparticles were successfully embedded in carbon nanorod, which were grown on the biomass-derived carbon (BC). When applied as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, these CoP@C/BC displayed capable specific capacity, remarkable rate ability and outstanding long-term cycling performance.