Synthesis of Pure Thiophene-Sulfur-Doped Graphene for an Oxygen Reduction Reaction with High Performance.

Various S-bonding configurations existing in sulfur-doped reduced graphene oxide (S-rGO) show different electronic structures and physiochemical properties. Thus, understanding the properties of unique S-bonding configurations requires the construction of S-rGO with only single configuration. Here, we synthesized S-rGO with a pure thiophene-sulfur configuration through a simple and low-cost hydrothermal method by simply controlling the oxidation degree of the graphene oxide (GO) precursor.

Electronic metal-support interaction modulates single-atom platinum catalysis for hydrogen evolution reaction.

Tuning metal-support interaction has been considered as an effective approach to modulate the electronic structure and catalytic activity of supported metal catalysts. At the atomic level, the understanding of the structure-activity relationship still remains obscure in heterogeneous catalysis, such as the conversion of water (alkaline) or hydronium ions (acid) to hydrogen (hydrogen evolution reaction, HER). Here, we reveal that the fine control over the oxidation states of single-atom Pt catalysts through electronic metal-support interaction significantly modulates the catalytic activities in either acidic or alkaline HER.

Site-specific electrodeposition enables self-terminating growth of atomically dispersed metal catalysts.

The growth of atomically dispersed metal catalysts (ADMCs) remains a great challenge owing to the thermodynamically driven atom aggregation. Here we report a surface-limited electrodeposition technique that uses site-specific substrates for the rapid and room-temperature synthesis of ADMCs. We obtained ADMCs by the underpotential deposition of a non-noble single-atom metal onto the chalcogen atoms of transition metal dichalcogenides and subsequent galvanic displacement with a more-noble single-atom metal.

Plasmonic Nanohybrid with High Photothermal Conversion Efficiency for Simultaneously Effective Antibacterial/Anticancer Photothermal Therapy.

Plasmonic metal/semiconductor nanohybrids hold great promise in photocatalysis and biosensor development; however, their potential phototherapeutic applications are yet fully unexplored. On the other hand, the demand of high laser power density to induce antibacterial photothermal therapeutic effects greatly restricts the practical applicability of the previously developed photothermal nanoagents (PTAs) for anticancer photothermal therapy (PTT). Here, we develop a plasmonic nanohybrid by integrating plasmonic noble metal gold nanorods (AuNRs) with a two-dimensional graphene oxide (2-D GO), capable to perform photothermal ablation of both bacterial pathogens as well as tumor cells, respectively, under low power single near-infrared (NIR) laser activation.