The synthesis of single-atom catalysts and the control of the electronic properties of catalytic sites to arrive at superior catalysts is a major challenge in heterogeneous catalysis. A stable supported single-atom silver catalyst with a controllable electronic state was obtained by anti-Ostwald ripening. An electronic perturbation of the catalytic sites that is induced by a subtle change in the structure of the support has a strong influence on the intrinsic reactivity. The higher depletion of the 4d electronic state of the silver atoms causes stronger electronic metal-support interactions, which leads to easier reducibility and higher catalytic activity. These results may improve our understanding of the nature of electronic metal-support interactions and lead to structure-activity correlations.

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Over the past two decades, magnetic hyperthermia and photothermal therapy are becoming very promising supplementary techniques to well-established cancer treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy. These techniques have dramatically improved their ability to perform controlled treatments, relying on the procedure of delivering nanoscale objects into targeted tumor tissues, which can release therapeutic killing doses of heat either upon AC magnetic field exposure or laser irradiation. Although an intense research effort has been made in recent years to study, separately, magnetic hyperthermia using iron oxide nanoparticles and photothermal therapy based on gold or silver plasmonic nanostructures, the full potential of combining both techniques has not yet been systematically explored. Here we present a proof-of-principle experiment showing that designing multifunctional silver/magnetite (Ag/Fe3O4) nanoflowers acting as dual hyperthermia agents is an efficient route for enhancing their heating ability or specific absorption rate (SAR). Interestingly, the SAR of the nanoflowers is increased by at least 1 order of magnitude under the application of both an external magnetic field of 200 Oe and simultaneous laser irradiation. Furthermore, our results show that the synergistic exploitation of the magnetic and photothermal properties of the nanoflowers reduces the magnetic field and laser intensities that would be required in the case that both external stimuli were applied separately. This constitutes a key step toward optimizing the hyperthermia therapy through a combined multifunctional magnetic and photothermal treatment and improving our understanding of the therapeutic process to specific applications that will entail coordinated efforts in physics, engineering, biology, and medicine.

During the last decade, the synthesis and application of metal-organic framework (MOF) nanosheets has received growing interest, showing unique performances for different technological applications. Despite the potential of this type of nanolamellar materials, the synthetic routes developed so far are restricted to MOFs possessing layered structures, limiting further development in this field. Here, a bottom-up surfactant-assisted synthetic approach is presented for the fabrication of nanosheets of various nonlayered MOFs, broadening the scope of MOF nanosheets application. Surfactant-assisted preorganization of the metallic precursor prior to MOF synthesis enables the manufacture of nonlayered Al-containing MOF lamellae. These MOF nanosheets are shown to exhibit a superior performance over other crystal morphologies for both chemical sensing and gas separation. As revealed by electron microscopy and diffraction, this superior performance arises from the shorter diffusion pathway in the MOF nanosheets, whose 1D channels are oriented along the shortest particle dimension.

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is a prior pollutant in both indoor and outdoor air, and catalytic oxidation proves the most promising technology for HCHO abatement. For this purpose, supported metal catalysts with single silver atoms confined at 4-fold O4-terminated surface hollow sites of a hollandite manganese oxide (HMO) as catalytic centers were synthesized and investigated in the complete oxidation of HCHO. Synchrotron X-ray diffraction patterns, X-ray absorption spectra, and electron diffraction tomography revealed that geometric structures and electronic states of the catalytic centers were tuned by the changes of HMO structures via controllable metal-support interactions. The catalytic tests demonstrated that the catalytically active centers with high electronic density of states and strong redox ability are favorable for enhancement of the catalytic efficiency in the HCHO oxidation. This work provides a strategy for designing efficient oxidation catalysts for controlling air pollution.