Galvanic Restructuring of Exsolved Nanoparticles for Plasmonic and Electrocatalytic Energy Conversion

Nanoparticle Exsolution on Perovskite Oxides: Insights into Mechanism, Characteristics and Novel Strategies

Supported nanoparticles have attracted considerable attention as a promising catalyst for achieving unique properties in numerous applications, including fuel cells, chemical conversion, and batteries. Nanocatalysts demonstrate high activity by expanding the number of active sites, but they also intensify deactivation issues, such as agglomeration and poisoning, simultaneously. Exsolution for bottom-up synthesis of supported nanoparticles has emerged as a breakthrough technique to overcome limitations associated with conventional nanomaterials. Nanoparticles are uniformly exsolved from perovskite oxide supports and socketed into the oxide support by a one-step reduction process. Their uniformity and stability, resulting from the socketed structure, play a crucial role in the development of novel nanocatalysts. Recently, tremendous research efforts have been dedicated to further controlling exsolution particles. To effectively address exsolution at a more precise level, understanding the underlying mechanism is essential. This review presents a comprehensive overview of the exsolution mechanism, with a focus on its driving force, processes, properties, and synergetic strategies, as well as new pathways for optimizing nanocatalysts in diverse applications.

Design and Synthesis of Noble Metal-Based Alloy Electrocatalysts and Their Application in Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Hydrogen energy is regarded as the ultimate energy source for future human society, and the preparation of hydrogen from water electrolysis is recognized as the most ideal way. One of the key factors to achieve large-scale hydrogen production by water splitting is the availability of highly active and stable electrocatalysts. Although non-precious metal electrocatalysts have made great strides in recent years, the best hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts are still based on noble metals. Therefore, it is particularly important to improve the overall activity of the electrocatalysts while reducing the noble metals load. Alloying strategies can shoulder the burden of optimizing electrocatalysts cost and improving electrocatalysts performance. With this in mind, recent work on the application of noble metal-based alloy electrocatalysts in the field of hydrogen production from water electrolysis is summarized. In this review, first, the mechanism of HER is described; then, the current development of synthesis methods for alloy electrocatalysts is presented; finally, an example analysis of practical application studies on alloy electrocatalysts in hydrogen production is presented. In addition, at the end of this review, the prospects, opportunities, and challenges facing noble metal-based alloy electrocatalysts are tried to discuss.