A new class of superhydrophobic surface based on multiple hybrid coatings is proposed and prepared to improve mechanical and reproduction stability. It does not only show a large water contact angle (ca. 174.5°) but also a slight decrease (ca. 6.4%) of water contact angle after 100 mechanical abrasion cycles. Furthermore, the water contact angle changes slightly (relative standard deviation, 0.14%) for the three superhydrophobic surfaces prepared with the same procedure. The application of superhydrophobic multiple hybrid coatings in corrosion protection is further investigated by the Tafel polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The superhydrophobic multiple hybrid coatings showed lower corrosion current (1.4 × 10–11 A/cm2), lower corrosion rate (ca. 1.6 × 10–7 mm/year), and larger polarization resistance (7.9 × 104 MΩ cm2) in 3.5 wt % NaCl aqueous solution compared to other superhydrophobic coatings reported in previous works. This work not only confirms the formation of robust superhydrophobic surface for real application in corrosion protection but also provides a new model of superhydrophobic surface based on multiple hybrid coatings with high mechanical, chemical, and reproduction stability for various applications.

Here, we report a universal single-atom coating (SAC) strategy by taking advantage of the rich chemistry of tannic acid (TA). TA units not only selfassemble into a cross-linked porous polyphenolic framework, but also can grip on different substates via multiple binding modes. Benefiting from the diverse chelating ability of TA, a series of mono-, and bimetallic SACs can be formed on substrates of different materials (e. g., carbon, SiO 2 , TiO 2 , MoS 2 ), dimensions (0D-3D) and sizes (50 nm-5 cm). By contrast, uniform SAC cannot be achieved using common approaches such as pyrolysis of metal-dopamine complexes or metal-organic frameworks. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, two Co SACs immobilized on graphene and TiO 2 were prepared. The former one shows six-fold higher mass activity than Pt/C toward oxygen reduction. The latter one displays outstanding photocatalytic activity owing to the high activity of the single atoms and the formation of the single-atom coating-TiO 2 heterojunction.

A new class of superhydrophobic surface based on assembly of nanoparticles were fabricated for improving mechanical durability and anti-icing performance under ultra-low temperature. Furthermore, the anti-icing performance and mechanism of the yielded superhydrophobic surface was investigated by a high speed video and thermal infrared imaging equipment. The frozen time of water droplets could be prolonged to 372.0s when exposed glass slides with superhydrophobic surface to an ultra-low temperature of -40.0℃. This outstanding anti-icing performance is attributed to the unique structure of the superhydrophobic surface based on assembly of nanoparticles, which possesses good free-energy barrier and low heat transfer rate. This study thus opens up an avenue for the design and fabrication of superhydrophobic surface with good durability and anti-icing performance under ultra-low temperature.

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The atom‐cluster interaction has recently been exploited as an effective way to increase the performance of metal‐nitrogen‐carbon catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, the rational design of such catalysts and understanding their structure‐property correlations remain a great challenge. Herein, we demonstrate that the introduction of adjacent metal (M)−N4 single atoms (SAs) could significantly improve the ORR performance of a well‐screened Fe atomic cluster (AC) catalyst by combining density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental analysis. The DFT studies suggest that the Cu−N4 SAs act as a modulator to assist the O2 adsorption and cleavage of O−O bond on the Fe AC active center, as well as optimize the release of OH* intermediates to accelerate the whole ORR kinetic. The depositing of Fe AC with Cu−N4 SAs on nitrogen doped mesoporous carbon nanosheet are then constructed through a universal interfacial monomicelles assembly strategy. Consistent with theoretical predictions, the resultant catalyst exhibits an outstanding ORR performance with a half‐wave potential of 0.92 eV in alkali and 0.80 eV in acid, as well as a high power density of 214.8 mW cm−2 in zinc air battery. This work provides a novel strategy for precisely tuning the atomically dispersed poly‐metallic centers for electrocatalysis.