Wrinkle facilitated hydrogen evolution reaction of vacancy-defected transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers

Locally Strained 2D Materials: Preparation, Properties, and Applications

2D materials are promising for strain engineering due to their atomic thickness and exceptional mechanical properties. In particular, non-uniform and localized strain can be induced in 2D materials by generating out-of-plane deformations, resulting in novel phenomena and properties, as witnessed in recent years. Therefore, the locally strained 2D materials are of great value for both fundamental studies and practical applications. This review discusses techniques for introducing local strains to 2D materials, and their feasibility, advantages, and challenges. Then, the unique effects and properties that arise from local strain are explored. The representative applications based on locally strained 2D materials are illustrated, including memristor, single photon emitter, and photodetector. Finally, concluding remarks on the challenges and opportunities in the emerging field of locally strained 2D materials are provided.

Deformable Catalytic Material Derived from Mechanical Flexibility for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Deformable catalytic material with excellent flexible structure is a new type of catalyst that has been applied in various chemical reactions, especially electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In recent years, deformable catalysts for HER have made great progress and would become a research hotspot. The catalytic activities of deformable catalysts could be adjustable by the strain engineering and surface reconfiguration. The surface curvature of flexible catalytic materials is closely related to the electrocatalytic HER properties. Here, firstly, we systematically summarized self-adaptive catalytic performance of deformable catalysts and various micro-nanostructures evolution in catalytic HER process. Secondly, a series of strategies to design highly active catalysts based on the mechanical flexibility of low-dimensional nanomaterials were summarized. Last but not least, we presented the challenges and prospects of the study of flexible and deformable micro-nanostructures of electrocatalysts, which would further deepen the understanding of catalytic mechanisms of deformable HER catalyst.

Genetic descriptor search algorithm for predicting hydrogen adsorption free energy of 2D material

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have emerged as a promising alternative to noble metals in the field of electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. However, previous attempts using machine learning to predict TMD properties, such as catalytic activity, have been shown to have limitations in their dependence on large amounts of training data and massive computations. Herein, we propose a genetic descriptor search that efficiently identifies a set of descriptors through a genetic algorithm, without requiring intensive calculations. We conducted both quantitative and qualitative experiments on a total of 70 TMDs to predict hydrogen adsorption free energy ([Formula: see text]) with the generated descriptors. The results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperformed the feature extraction methods that are currently widely used in machine learning applications.

Biomimicry-inspired fish scale-like Ni3N/FeNi3N/NF superhydrophilic/superaerophobic nanoarrays displaying high electrocatalytic performance

The mass transfer efficiency and structural stability of the electrode are critical for industrialized water electrolysis operations. Herein, the biomimicry-inspired design of Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF nanoarrays with a fish scale-like structure, which endowed the Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF nanoarrays with rapid infiltration of aqueous solution within 60 ms and 169° bubble contact angle, is demonstrated. The optimal Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF sample displayed catalytic activity with hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) overpotentials of only 48 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and 102 mV at 100 mA cm^-2. Similarly, the overpotential of the anodic-coupled urea oxidation reaction (UOR) was only 1.3 V at 10 mA cm^-2 and 1.35 V at 100 mA cm^-2. Besides, the small impact resulting from the rapid bubble extraction within the Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF nanoarrays ensured excellent HER cycling stability over 100 h at a current density of 50 mA cm^-2. The further scale-up experiment suggests the industrialization prospects of the prepared Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF electrocatalysts.