Magnetic and magnetostrictive properties of magnetic-annealed polycrystalline CoFe2O4 were investigated. The magnetic hysteresis loops showed obvious uniaxiality with an induced easy direction parallel to the annealing field. Magnetic force microscopy study revealed that the domains were fixed by magnetic annealing. The uniaxial behavior was also observed in the magnetostrictive measurement, which showed a significantly enhanced magnetostriction of − 273 PPM when the external field was applied perpendicular to the annealing field direction. A physical mechanism for the effect of magnetic annealing on polycrystalline CoFe2O4 is developed, in which the induced uniaxiality is ascribed to the realignment of easy axes in polycrystals. The uniaxial behavior of magnetism and enhanced magnetostriction could be well explained by this model.

In laminates, the converse magnetoelectric (CME) effect is often achieved by an elastic coupling between magnetostrictive and piezoelectric layers. Here the authors report on an alternative mechanism for obtaining CME. In a transition-metals-based ferromagnetic shape memory alloy/piezoelectric ceramic laminated composite, the stress-induced martensitic transformation is utilized to gain the magnetic changes, which gives rise to a giant CME effect consequently. The strong CME is observed at room temperature over a broad bandwidth, under weak magnetic bias and electric field.

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Rational design LDHs (layered double hydroxides) with 3D hierarchical hollow structures have generated widespread interest for catalytic oxidation due to the high complexity in shell architecture and composition. Herein, we reported a handy two-step method to construct a 3D hierarchical NiCo2O4/NiO nanocage. This synthetic strategy contains a partial in situ transformation of ZIF-67 (zeolitic imidazolate framework-67) into Co-NiLDH yolk-shelled structures following ethanol etching, and a structure-preserved transformation from Co-NiLDH@ZIF-67 to a biphase nanocage following calcination. CoNi-yh-T (varied reaction time and calcination temperature) nanocages were investigated systematically by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), H2- temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), NH3-temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and studied for toluene oxidation. The CoNi-6h-350 sample showed much higher activity with 90% toluene conversion (T90) at 229 °C at a high space velocity (SV = 60,000 mL g−1 h−1) than other catalysts (T90 >240 °C). Abundant surface high valence Co ions caused by the novel hierarchical nanostructures, together with adsorbed oxygen species and abundant medium-strength surface acid sites, played a key role for catalytic activities.