In this paper, monodisperse Pd nanocrystals were immobilized on previously reported carbon nanospheres via in situ adsorption and reduction. In this protocol, no excess reductant and capping reagents were necessary, which made the surface of the as-prepared nanocatalysts very clean. Using sodium tetrachloropalladate(II) as the metal precursor yielded palladium nanocrystals with a size around 5 nm regardless of the metal loading, while the use of palladium chloride resulted in a size increase to 18.1 nm. Moreover, the additives used during preparation have been proven to be of great importance in controlling the average particle size. It was suggested that the pattern of the adsorbed palladium ions or the surface environment of support was greatly influenced. Strong adsorption of the palladium ions on the carbon spheres led to a decrease in size. The nanocrystals exhibited excellent catalytic activity for transfer hydrogenation under ambient conditions. The conversion was 83.1% to 100% for several nitroaromatics with moderate to excellent selectivity. More importantly, these nanocatalysts are promising for renewable catalysis owing to their sustainable support, green catalyst fabrication and ease of handling.

Iron sulfide compounds are emerging as an important family of functional materials owing to their important properties and their applications in different technical fields. Well‐defined Fe7S8 nanowires templated by thermal decomposition of [Fe16S20]/diethylenetriamine hybrid nanowires under an argon atmosphere are reported. As‐prepared Fe7S8 nanowires show typical Michaelis–Menten kinetics and good affinity to both H2O2 and 3,3′,5,5′‐tetramethylbenzidine. At pH 7.0, the constructed UV/Vis sensor showed a linear range for the detection of H2O2 from 0.5 to 150 μM with a correlation coefficient of 0.9998. The H2O2 sensor based on the Fe7S8 nanowires shows a highly sensitive response and has better stability than horseradish peroxidase when exposed to solutions with different pH values and temperatures. These excellent properties make the as‐prepared Fe7S8 nanowires powerful tools for potential applications as an “artificial peroxidase” in biosensors and biotechnology.