Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO₂RR) can produce value-added hydrocarbons from renewable electricity, providing a sustainable and promising approach to meet dual-carbon targets and alleviate the energy crisis. However, it is still challenging to improve the selectivity and stability of the products, especially the C₂₊ products. Here we propose to modulate the electronic structure of copper oxide (CuO) through lattice strain construction by zinc (Zn) doping to improve the selectivity of the catalyst to ethylene. Combined performance and in situ characterization analyses show that the compressive strain generated within the CuO lattice and the electronic structure modulation by Zn doping enhances the adsorption of the key intermediate ^⋆CO, thereby increasing the intrinsic activity of CO₂RR and inhibiting the hydrogen precipitation reaction. Among the best catalysts had significantly improved ethylene selectivity of 60.5% and partial current density of 500 mA·cm⁻², and the highest C₂₊ Faraday efficiency of 71.47%. This paper provides a simple idea to study the modulation of CO₂RR properties by heteroatom doped and lattice strain.

Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are groups of bioelectrochemical technologies and platforms that could facilitate versatile environmental and biological applications. The performance of BES is mainly determined by the key process of electron transfer at the bacteria and electrode interface, which is known as extracellular electron transfer (EET). Thus, developing novel electrodes to encourage bacteria attachment and enhance EET efficiency is of great significance. Recently, three-dimensional (3D) electrodes, which provide large specific area for bacteria attachment and macroporous structures for substrate diffusion, have emerged as a promising electrode for high-performance BES. Herein, a comprehensive review of versatile methodology developed for 3D electrode fabrication is presented. This review article is organized based on the categorization of 3D electrode fabrication strategy and BES performance comparison. In particular, the advantages and shortcomings of these 3D electrodes are presented and their future development is discussed.

Introduction: Iron is one of the most important needed elements for the growth and reproduction of living organisms. The detection of iron levels is important and developing fluorescent probes with excellent sensitivity for Fe³⁺ ions is of great significance. Carbon dot (CDs) is a new type of fluorescent nanomaterial based on abundant and low-cost carbon elements. The use of widely distributed renewable agricultural waste straw as a carbon precursor to prepare CDs sensor can not only reduce the pollution caused by burning straw to the atmospheric environment, but also achieve the transformation of resources from waste to treasure.Methods: In this study, CDs were obtained from corn stalk powder by pyrolysis and microwave process. The sensitivity and linear response range of CDs sensor was studied through analyzing the effect of different Fe³⁺ ions concentrations on the fluorescence quenching. The application of CDs in biological cell imaging was investigated using HGC-27 cells.Results: The fluorescence quenching showed a good linear relationship with the Fe3+ concentration in the range from 0 to 128 μM, and a low detection limit of 63 nM. In addition, the CDs have high recognition for Fe3+ ions. Meanwhile, the CDs have a low cytotoxicity and desirable biocompatibility, allowing the multicolor living cell imaging.Conclusion: The prepared CDs can be used as fluorescent sensors for the selective detection of Fe³⁺ ions and biological cell imaging. Our results supported that the conversion of agricultural waste into carbon nanomaterials has great potential to be developed.

A novel NiFe₂O₄@GN–Pd was used as outstanding catalyst for the Suzuki reaction in EtOH/H₂O. The hybrid catalyst could be recycled and reused with the simple application of an external magnetic field, while keeping similar catalytic activity for six successive reactions.