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A hundred years on, the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process continues to turn the N in air into fertilizer, nourishing billions of people while causing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The urgency of mitigating climate change motivates society to progress toward a more sustainable method for fixing N that is based on clean energy. Surface oxygen vacancies (surface O ) hold great potential for N adsorption and activation, but introducing O on the very surface without affecting bulk properties remains a great challenge. Fine tuning of the surface O by atomic layer deposition is described, forming a thin amorphous TiO layer on plasmon-enhanced rutile TiO /Au nanorods. Surface O in the outer amorphous TiO thin layer promote the adsorption and activation of N , which facilitates N reduction to ammonia by excited electrons from ultraviolet-light-driven TiO and visible-light-driven Au surface plasmons. The findings offer a new approach to N photofixation under ambient conditions (that is, room temperature and atmospheric pressure).

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Hierarchical zeolites combine the intrinsic catalytic properties of microporous zeolites and the enhanced access and transport of the additional meso-and/or macroporous system. These materials are the most desirable catalysts and sorbents for industry and become a highly evolving field of important current interests. In addition to the enhanced mass transfer leading to high activity, selectivity, and cycle time, another essential merit of the hierarchical structure in zeolite materials is that it can significantly improve the utilization effectiveness of zeolite materials resulting in the minimum energy, time, and raw materials consumption. Substantial progress has been made in the synthesis, characterization, and application of hierarchical zeolites. Herein, we provide an overview of recent achievements in the field, highlighting the significant progress in the past decade on the development of novel and remarkable strategies to create an additional pore system in zeolites. The most innovative synthesis approaches are reviewed according to the principle, versatility, effectiveness, and degree of reality while establishing a firm link between the preparation route and the resultant hierarchical pore quality in zeolites. Zeolites with different hierarchically porous structures, i.e., micro-mesoporous structure, micromacroporous structure, and micro-meso-macroporous structure, are then analyzed in detail with concrete examples to illustrate their benefits and their fabrications. The significantly improved performances in catalytic, environmental, and biological applications resulting from enhanced mass transport properties are discussed through a series of representative cases. In the concluding part, we envision the emergence of "material-properties-by-quantitative and real rational design" based on the "generalized Murray's Law" that enables the predictable and controlled productions of bioinspired hierarchically structured zeolites. This Review is expected to attract important interests from catalysis, separation, environment, advanced materials, and chemical engineering fields as well as biomedicine for artificial organ and drug delivery systems.