Enhancing the water splitting performance via decorating Co3O4 nanoarrays with ruthenium doping and phosphorization

Hydrogen is the most promising renewable energy source to replace traditional fossil fuels for its ultrahigh energy density, abundance and environmental friendliness. Generating hydrogen by water splitting with highly efficient electrocatalysts is a feasible route to meet current and future energy demand. Herein, the effects of Ru doping and phosphorization treatment on Co₃O₄ nanoarrays for water splitting are systemically investigated. The results show that a small amount of phosphorus can accelerate hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the trace of Ru dopant can significantly enhance the catalytic activities for HER and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Ru-doped cobalt phosphorous oxide/nickel foam (CoRuPO/NF) nanoarrays exhibit highly efficient catalytic performance with an overpotential of 26 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² for HER and 342 mV at 50 mA cm⁻² for OER in 1 M KOH solution, indicating superior water splitting performance. Furthermore, the CoRuPO/NF also exhibits eminent and durable activities for alkaline seawater electrolysis. This work significantly advances the development of seawater splitting for hydrogen generation.

CoRuPO/NF shows low overpotentials in HER and OER.

A Critical Review on Enhancement of Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production by Molybdenum Disulfide: From Growth to Interfacial Activities

Ultrathin 2D molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂ ), which is the flagship of 2D transition-metal dichalcogenide nanomaterials, has drawn much attention in the last few years. 2D MoS₂ has been banked as an alternative to platinum for highly active hydrogen evolution reaction because of its low cost, high surface-to-volume ratio, and abundant active sites. However, when MoS₂ is used directly as a photocatalyst, contrary to public expectation, it still performs poorly due to lateral size, high recombination ratio of excitons, and low optical cross section. Besides, simply compositing MoS₂ as a cocatalyst with other semiconductors cannot satisfy the practical application, which stimulates the pursual of a comprehensive insight into recent advances in synthesis, properties, and enhanced hydrogen production of MoS₂ . Therefore, in this Review, emphasis is given to synthetic methods, phase transitions, tunable optical properties, and interfacial engineering of 2D MoS₂ . Abundant ways of band edge tuning, structural modification, and phase transition are addressed, which can generate the neoteric photocatalytic systems. Finally, the main challenges and opportunities with respect to MoS₂ being a cocatalyst and coherent light-matter interaction of MoS₂ in photocatalytic systems are proposed.

An analytical model for the bending of radial nanowire heterostructures

The balance between surface energy and elastic strain energy determines the bending induced by heteroepitaxial growth on the surface of thin nanowires.

Organic/Inorganic Metal Halide Perovskite Optoelectronic Devices beyond Solar Cells

Investigations of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite materials have attracted extensive attention due to their excellent properties including bandgap tunability, long charge diffusion length, and outstanding optoelectronic merits. Organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites are demonstrated to be promising materials in a variety of optoelectronic applications including photodetection, energy harvesting, and light-emitting devices. As perovskite solar cells are well studied in literature, here, the recent developments of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite materials in optoelectronic devices beyond solar cells are summarized. The preparation of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite films is introduced. Applications of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite materials in light-emitting diodes, photodetectors, and lasers are then highlighted. Finally, the recent advances in these optoelectronic applications based on organic-inorganic metal halide materials are summarized and the future perspectives are discussed.