Hybrid microstructures consisting of a CoNi segment for wireless magnetic manipulation coupled to a Bi₂O₃/BiOCl segment are utilized for water remediation.

Ni (1 wt%)-, Pt (1 wt%)- and [Ni (0.5 wt%)/Pt (0.5 wt%)]-doped TiO₂ nanoporous catalysts have been successfully obtained through a facile two-step hydrothermal route. TiO₂ crystallizes mostly in the anatase phase and acts as a mesoporous matrix. Meanwhile, Ni, Pt and Ni/Pt dopants form small nanoparticles (NPs) (3–95 nm in diameter) which are hosted by the TiO₂ framework. The resulting composites exhibit a rather large surface area, in the range of 186–200 m2/g. The band gap energy reduces from 3.03 eV for the undoped TiO₂ to 2.15 eV for the Pt-loaded TiO₂. As a consequence, absorption expands toward the visible light range. The photodegradation of Rhodamine B dye in aqueous medium has been investigated under UV–vis light irradiation. The presence of Ni, Pt and Ni/Pt NPs significantly enhances the photocatalytic activity of the material. Furthermore, the Ni-doped TiO₂ shows ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature, which makes its recovery and subsequent fast reutilization possible. Interestingly, this sample also exhibits the best stability upon recycling. Considering all the current challenges in sustainable water remediation, these new photocatalysts could find applications in real environmental contexts in the near future

Even if rhodium is one of the rarest and the most costly metals, this noble metal has found many catalytic applications, particularly in hydrogenation and hydroformylation reactions owing to its specific catalytic properties. Tremendous research activities are thus carried out by the scientific community for the development of novel rhodium-based catalysts. This interest for rhodium catalysts concerns also the modern “nanocatalysis” area, situated at the frontier between heterogeneous and homogeneous ones, nanoparticles soluble in a liquid phase being considered as “pseudo homogeneous” systems. A high number of papers describe the preparation of diverse rhodium nanoparticles in suspension for their application as catalysts in hydrogenation of various substrates (mainly olefins and aromatic derivatives) in various catalytic conditions (mainly organic or biphasic phases). Concerning hydroformylation catalysis, it appears that only a few papers deal with rhodium metal nanoparticles for investigation in this reaction, although rhodium is well-known as highly active metal in hydroformylation reaction in homogeneous conditions. In this review, rhodium nanoparticle systems that have been prepared for investigation as nanocatalysts in liquid phase hydrogenation and hydroformylation reactions are described. This work is not comprehensive but provides an overview of the main methods used to synthesize rhodium nanoparticles for these selected catalytic applications. The objective of this review is to give to the readership an outlook of the recent advances in this field, as well as of the great potential of rhodium-based nanocatalysts for hydrogenation and hydroformylation reactions, two reactions of importance in organic synthesis.

Magnetic data storage and magnetically actuated devices are conventionally controlled by magnetic fields generated using electric currents. This involves significant power dissipation by Joule heating effect. To optimize energy efficiency, manipulation of magnetic information with lower magnetic fields (i.e., lower electric currents) is desirable. This can be accomplished by reducing the coercivity of the actuated material. Here, a drastic reduction of coercivity is observed at room temperature in thick (≈600 nm), nanoporous, electrodeposited Cu–Ni films by simply subjecting them to the action of an electric field. The effect is due to voltage‐induced changes in the magnetic anisotropy. The large surface‐area‐to‐volume ratio and the ultranarrow pore walls of the system allow the whole film, and not only the topmost surface, to effectively contribute to the observed magnetoelectric effect. This waives the stringent “ultrathin‐film requirement” from previous studies, where small voltage‐driven coercivity variations were reported. This observation expands the already wide range of applications of nanoporous materials (hitherto in areas like energy storage or catalysis) and it opens new paradigms in the fields of spintronics, computation, and magnetic actuation in general.