Transition-metal sulfides (TMSs) have emerged as important candidates for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts. Now a hybrid nanostructure has been decorated with CeO nanoparticles on the surface of ZIF-67-derived hollow CoS through in situ generation. Proper control of the amount of CeO on the surface of CoS can achieve precise tuning of Co /Co ratio, especially for the induced defects, further boosting the OER activity. Meanwhile, the formation of protective CeO thin layer effectively inhibits the corrosion by losing cobalt ion species from the active surface into the solution. It is thus a rare example of a hybrid hetero-structural electrocatalyst with CeO NPs to improve the performance of the hollow TMS nanocage.

Developing convenient doping to build highly active oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts is a practical process for solving the energy crisis. Herein, a facile and low-cost in situ self-assembly strategy for preparing a Ce-doped NiFe-LDH nanosheets/nanocarbon (denoted as NiFeCe-LDH/CNT, LDH = layered double hydroxide and CNT = carbon nanotube) hierarchical nanocomposite is established for enhanced OER, in which the novel material provides its overall advantageous structural features, including high intrinsic catalytic activity, rich redox properties, high, flexible coordination number of Ce, and strongly coupled interface. Further experimental results indicate that doped Ce into NiFe-LDH/CNT nanoarrays brings about the reinforced specific surface area, electrochemical surface area, lattice defects, and the electron transport between the LDH nanolayered structure and the framework of CNTs. The effective synergy prompts the NiFeCe-LDH/CNT nanocomposite to possess superior OER electrocatalytic activity with a low onset potential (227 mV) and Tafel slope (33 mV dec), better than the most non-noble metal-based OER electrocatalysts reported. Therefore, the combination of the remarkable catalytic ability and the facile normal temperature synthesis conditions endows the Ce-doped LDH nanocomposite as a promising catalyst to expand the field of lanthanide-doped layered materials for efficient water-splitting electrocatalysis with scale-up potential.

The poor UV, thermal, and interfacial stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) makes it highly challenging for their technological application, and has drawn increasing attention to resolving the above issues. In nature, plants generally sustain long exposure to UV illumination without damage, which is attributed to the presence of the organic materials acting as sunscreens. Inspired by the natural phenomenon, a natural plant sunscreen, sinapoyl malate, an ester derivative of sinapic acid, is employed to modify the surface of electron transport materials (ETMs). The interfacial modification successfully resolved the UV stability and reduced the poor interfacial contact between ETM and perovskite. The best efficiency of fabricated PSCs is up to 19.6%. Furthermore, we employed a mixture of Co(II) and Co(III)-based porphyrin compounds containing the excellent Co(II)/Co(III) redox couple to substitute the commonly used hole transport material, 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9-spiro-bifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD), to resolve the thermal degradation of PSCs noted at and above 80 °C that originates from ion diffusion of I and CH NH (MA ) ions from perovskite into spiro-OMeTAD. Finally, the stable PSCs with the best efficiency up to 20.5% are successfully fabricated.

Micro-/nanocapsules assembly holds great potential for catalysis, storage, and drug delivery due to their modifiable shell, high exposed surface, and large accommodation space. Here, an ingenious one-step reaction strategy is...