Tin selenide (SnSe) is one of the most promising candidates to realize environmentally friendly, cost‐effective, and high‐performance thermoelectrics, derived from its outstanding electrical transport properties by appropriate bandgaps and intrinsic low lattice thermal conductivity from its anharmonic layered structure. Advanced aqueous synthesis possesses various unique advantages including convenient morphology control, exceptional high doping solubility, and distinctive vacancy engineering. Considering that there is an urgent demand for a comprehensive survey on the aqueous synthesis technique applied to thermoelectric SnSe, herein, a thorough overview of aqueous synthesis, characterization, and thermoelectric performance in SnSe is provided. New insights into the aqueous synthesis‐based strategies for improving the performance are provided, including vacancy synergy, crystallization design, solubility breakthrough, and local lattice imperfection engineering, and an attempt to build the inherent links between the aqueous synthesis‐induced structural characteristics and the excellent thermoelectric performance is presented. Furthermore, the significant advantages and potentials of an aqueous synthesis route for fabricating SnSe‐based 2D thermoelectric generators, including nanorods, nanobelts, and nanosheets, are also discussed. Finally, the controversy, strategy, and outlook toward future enhancement of SnSe‐based thermoelectric materials are also provided. This Review guides the design of thermoelectric SnSe with high performance and provides new perspectives as a reference for other thermoelectric systems.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are crucial molecules in cancer therapy. Unfortunately, the therapeutic efficiency of ROS is unsatisfactory in clinic, primarily due to their rigorous production conditions. By taking advantage of the intrinsic acidity and overproduction of H 2 O 2 in the tumor environment, we have reported an ROS nanoreactor based on core−shell-structured iron carbide (Fe 5 C 2 @Fe 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles (NPs) through the catalysis of the Fenton reaction. These NPs are able to release ferrous ions in acidic environments to disproportionate H 2 O 2 into • OH radicals, which effectively inhibits the proliferation of tumor cells both in vitro and in vivo. The high magnetization of Fe 5 C 2 @Fe 3 O 4 NPs is favorable for both magnetic targeting and T 2 -weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Ionization of these NPs simultaneously decreases the T 2 signal and enhances the T 1 signal in MRI, and this T 2 /T 1 switching process provides the visualization of ferrous ions release and ROS generation for the supervision of tumor curing. These Fe 5 C 2 @Fe 3 O 4 NPs show great potential in endogenous environment-excited cancer therapy with high efficiency and tumor specificity and can be guided further by MRI.
Exploiting effective electrocatalysts based on elaborate heterostructures for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has been considered as a promising strategy for boosting water splitting efficiency to produce the clean energy—hydrogen. However, constructing catalytically active heterostructures with novel composition and architecture remains poorly developed due to the synthetic challenge. In this work, it is demonstrated that unique Ni(CN)2/NiSe2 heterostructures, composed of single‐crystalline Ni(CN)2 nanoplates surrounded by crystallographically aligned NiSe2 nanosatellites, can be created from nickel‐based Hofmann‐type coordination polymers through stepwise topochemical pathways. When employed as the OER electrocatalyst, the Ni(CN)2/NiSe2 heterostructures show enhanced performance, which could be attributed to optimized geometric and electronic structures of the catalytic sites endowed by the synergy between the two components. This work demonstrates a rational synthetic route for creating a novel Ni‐based OER electrocatalyst that possesses nanoscale heterostructure, whose composition, spatial organization, and interface configuration can be finely manipulated.
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