Mixing multimetallic elements in hollow‐structured nanoparticles is a promising strategy for the synthesis of highly efficient and cost‐effective catalysts. However, the synthesis of multimetallic hollow nanoparticles is limited to two or three elements due to the difficulties in morphology control under the harsh alloying conditions. Herein, the rapid and continuous synthesis of hollow high‐entropy‐alloy (HEA) nanoparticles using a continuous “droplet‐to‐particle” method is reported. The formation of these hollow HEA nanoparticles is enabled through the decomposition of a gas‐blowing agent in which a large amount of gas is produced in situ to “puff” the droplet during heating, followed by decomposition of the metal salt precursors and nucleation/growth of multimetallic particles. The high active sites per mass ratio of such hollow HEA nanoparticles makes them promising candidates for energy and electrocatalysis applications. As a proof‐of‐concept, it is demonstrated that these materials can be applied as the cathode catalyst for Li–O2 battery operations with a record‐high current density per catalyst mass loading of 2000 mA gcat.−1, as well as good stability and durable catalytic activity. This work offers a viable strategy for the continuous manufacturing of hollow HEA nanomaterials that can find broad applications in energy and catalysis.

High entropy alloy nanoparticles (HEA-NPs) are reported to have superior performance in catalysis, energy storage, and conversion due to the broad range of elements that can be incorporated in these materials, enabling tunable activity, excellent thermal and chemical stability, and a synergistic catalytic effect. However, scaling the manufacturing of HEA-NPs with uniform particle size and homogeneous elemental distribution efficiently is still a challenge due to the required critical synthetic conditions where high temperature is typically involved. In this work, we demonstrate an efficient and scalable microwave heating method using carbon-based materials as substrates to fabricate HEA-NPs with uniform particle size. Due to the abundant functional group defects that can absorb microwave efficiently, reduced graphene oxide is employed as a model substrate to produce an average temperature reaching as high as ∼1850 K within seconds. As a proof-of-concept, we utilize this rapid, high-temperature heating process to synthesize PtPdFeCoNi HEA-NPs, which exhibit an average particle size of ∼12 nm and uniform elemental mixing resulting from decomposition nearly at the same time and liquid metal solidification without diffusion. Various carbon-based materials can also be employed as substrates, including one-dimensional carbon nanofibers and three-dimensional carbonized wood, which can achieve temperatures of >1400 K. This facile and efficient microwave heating method is also compatible with the roll-to-roll process, providing a feasible route for scalable HEA-NPs manufacturing.

Electric conductors are ubiquitously used for electromagnetic shielding, flexible electronics, and energy storage, with metals and carbon-based compounds as traditional choices for these applications. Here, we develop a conductive wood as a new type of structural electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding material with combined load-bearing function via delignification and subsequent in situ chemical vapor deposition of polypyrrole (PPy) inside the wood channels. The centimeter-long wood channels are well coated by a layer of interconnected PPy, which provides a high electrical conductivity of 39 S m −1 . Our results demonstrate that 3.5 cm thick conductive wood displays an EMI shielding effectiveness of ∼58 dB. Moreover, the conductive wood inherits the advanced mechanical strength of natural wood via the carbonization-free process, as the compressive and tensile strengths of the conductive wood are about 3-and 28.7-times higher than those of conventional carbonized wood materials, respectively. This study may pave the way for structural EMI shielding applications using scalable, renewable, and cost-effective biomaterials. Its remarkable advantages, including uniform electrical conductivity, outstanding compressive strength, a controllable material thickness of up to several centimeters, as well as its lightweight and sustainability, ensure strong potential for applications in next-generation structural materials.

A metal-free reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to the corresponding amines has been achieved by a combination of B2pin2 and KOtBu in isopropanol. A series of nitro compounds containing various reducible functional groups were chemoselectively reduced in good to excellent yields.

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