An Fe-doped CoP nanoarray behaves as a robust 3D monolithic multifunctional catalyst for electrolytic and hydrolytic hydrogen evolution with high activity. Its two-electrode electrolyzer needs a cell voltage of only 1.60 V for 10 mA cm water-splitting current. It also catalyzes effectively NaBH hydrolysis with a low activation energy of ≈39.6 kJ mol and a hydrogen generation rate of 6.06 L min g .

Replacement of precious Pt with earth-abundant electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) holds great promise for clean energy devices, but the development of low-cost and durable HER catalysts with Pt-like activity is still a huge challenge. In this communication, we report on the development of self-standing ternary FeCoP nanowire array on carbon cloth (FeCoP/CC) as a Pt-free HER catalyst with activities being strongly related to Fe substitution ratio. Electrochemical tests show that FeCoP/CC not only possesses Pt-like activity with the need of overpotential of only 37 mV to drive 10 mA cm, outperforming all non-noble-metal HER catalysts reported to date, but demonstrates superior long-term durability in 0.5 M HSO. Density functional theory calculations further reveal that Fe substitution of Co in CoP leads to more optimal free energy of hydrogen adsorption to the catalyst surface. This study offers us a promising flexible monolithic catalyst for practical applications.

Uptake and intracellular transport of D-penicillamine coated quantum dots (DPA-QDs) of 4 nm radius by live HeLa cells have been investigated systematically by spinning disk and 4Pi confocal microscopies. Unlike larger nanoparticles, these small DPA-QDs were observed to accumulate at the plasma membrane prior to internalization, and the uptake efficiency scaled nonlinearly with the nanoparticle concentration. Both observations indicate that a critical threshold density has to be exceeded for triggering the internalization process. By using specific inhibitors, we showed that DPA-QDs were predominantly internalized by clathrin-mediated endocytosis and to a smaller extent by macropinocytosis. Clusters of DPA-QDs were found in endosomes, which were actively transported along microtubules toward the perinuclear region. Later on, a significant fraction of endocytosed DPA-QDs were found in lysosomes, while others were actively transported to the cell periphery and exocytosed with a half-life of 21 min.