Facile Synthesis and Insight of Atomically Dispersed Ni Catalyst on N-Doped Carbonized Lignin for Highly Efficient Electrochemical CO Reduction to CO.

For the electrochemical CO reduction reaction (CO RR), the single-metal atom catalysts (SACs) on N-doped carbon are considered promising alternatives to conventional catalysts owing to their unique electrocatalytic properties. However, environmentally friendly methods to prepare SACs are still required. Herein, Ni SAC was synthesized using lignin derived from biomass whose structural and chemical properties render it suitable as both a base carbon matrix and a metal chelating agent.

Engineering interfacial structures to accelerate hydrogen evolution efficiency of MoS over a wide pH range.

Developing low-cost electrocatalysts with outstanding electrochemical performance for water splitting over a wide pH range is urgently desired to meet the practical needs in different areas. Herein, a highly efficient hierarchical flower-like CoS@MoS core-shell nanostructured electrocatalyst is fabricated by a two-step strategy, in which MoS nanosheets with a layered structure are grown on the CoS core supported on carbon paper (CP) and used as hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts working in the whole pH range (0-14). Remarkably, benefiting from the interface-engineering in this 3D core-shell structure of the electrocatalyst, the optimum CoS@MoS/CP catalyst exhibits outstanding HER activity over a wide range of pH values and an overpotential of 69 mV in acidic solution, 145 mV in neutral solution and 82 mV in alkaline solution, respectively, to afford the standard current density of 10 mA cm.