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We demonstrate a one-pot hydrothermal cohydrolysis-carbonization process using glucose and iron nitrate as starting materials for the fabrication of carbonaceous spheres embedded with iron oxide nanoparticles. It is verified by TEM, (57)Fe Mossbauer, and Fe K-edge XAS that iron oxide nanoparticles are highly dispersed in the carbonaceous spheres, leading to a unique microstructure. A formation mechanism is also proposed. This route is also applicable to a range of other naturally occurring saccharides and metal nitrates. A catalytic study revealed the remarkable stability and selectivity of the reduced Fe(x)O(y)@C spheres in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, which clearly exemplifies the promising application of such materials.

Amorphous alloys structurally deviate from crystalline materials in that they possess unique short-range ordered and long-range disordered atomic arrangement. They are important catalytic materials due to their unique chemical and structural properties including broadly adjustable composition, structural homogeneity, and high concentration of coordinatively unsaturated sites. As chemically reduced metal-metalloid amorphous alloys exhibit excellent catalytic performance in applications such as efficient chemical production, energy conversion, and environmental remediation, there is an intense surge in interest in using them as catalytic materials. This critical review summarizes the progress in the study of the metal-metalloid amorphous alloy catalysts, mainly in recent decades, with special focus on their synthetic strategies and catalytic applications in petrochemical, fine chemical, energy, and environmental relevant reactions. The review is intended to be a valuable resource to researchers interested in these exciting catalytic materials. We concluded the review with some perspectives on the challenges and opportunities about the future developments of metal-metalloid amorphous alloy catalysts.

The organization of different nano objects with tunable sizes, morphologies, and functions into integrated nanostructures is critical to the development of novel nanosystems that display high performances in sensing, catalysis, and so on. Herein, using acetylacetone as a chelating agent, phenolic resol as a carbon source, metal nitrates as metal sources, and amphiphilic copolymers as a template, we demonstrate a chelate-assisted multicomponent coassembly method to synthesize ordered mesoporous carbon with uniform metal-containing nanoparticles. The obtained nanocomposites have a 2-D hexagonally arranged pore structure, uniform pore size (~4.0 nm), high surface area (~500 m(2)/g), moderate pore volume (~0.30 cm(3)/g), uniform and highly dispersed Fe(2)O(3) nanoparticles, and constant Fe(2)O(3) contents around 10 wt %. By adjusting acetylacetone amount, the size of Fe(2)O(3) nanoparticles is readily tunable from 8.3 to 22.1 nm. More importantly, it is found that the metal-containing nanoparticles are partially embedded in the carbon framework with the remaining part exposed in the mesopore channels. This unique semiexposure structure not only provides an excellent confinement effect and exposed surface for catalysis but also helps to tightly trap the nanoparticles and prevent aggregating during catalysis. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis results show that as the size of iron nanoparticles decreases, the mesoporous Fe-carbon nanocomposites exhibit significantly improved catalytic performances with C(5+) selectivity up to 68%, much better than any reported promoter-free Fe-based catalysts due to the unique semiexposure morphology of metal-containing nanoparticles confined in the mesoporous carbon matrix.