Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are currently attracting intense research interest for their various applications. Three LDH hollow nano-polyhedra are synthesized with zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) nanocrystals as the templates. The nanocages well inherit the rhombic dodecahedral shape of the ZIF-67 templates, and the shell is composed of nanosheets assembled with an edge-to-face stacking. This is the first synthesis of the LDH non-spherical structures. And the mechanism of utilizing metal–organic framework (MOF) nanocrystals as templates is explored. Control of the simultaneous reactions, the precipitation of the shells and the template etching, is extremely crucial to the preparation of the perfect nanocages. And the Ni–Co LDH nanocages exhibit superior pseudocapacitance property due to their novel hierarchical and submicroscopic structures.

Amorphous cobalt sulfide polyhedral nanocages are synthesized by utilizing zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) nanocrystals as templates.

The exploration of photoanode materials with high efficiency and stability is the eternal pursuit for the realization of practically solar-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Here we develop a deficient ternary metal sulfide (CdIn₂S₄) photoanode, and its PEC performance is significantly enhanced by introducing surface sulfur vacancies, achieving a photocurrent density of 5.73 mA cm⁻² at 1.23 V vs. RHE and 1 Sun with an applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of 2.49% at 0.477 V vs. RHE. The experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations highlight the enhanced effect of surface sulfur vacancies on the interfacial charge separation and transfer kinetics, which also demonstrate the restrained surface states distribution and the transformation of active sites after introducing surface sulfur vacancies. This work may inspire more excellent work on developing sulfide-based photoanodes.

Continuous iron oxide gel fibers were prepared by the sol–gel method using ferric alkoxide and acetic acid as starting materials and alcohol as solvent, and continuous hollow α-Fe₂O₃ fibers produced after the gel fibers were heat treated at 400 °C for 1 h. The outer diameter of the α-Fe₂O₃ fibers is between 4–10 µm and the wall thickness is 1–2 µm, in which the α-Fe₂O₃ particle size is about 100 nm. 2-Methoxyethanol and acetic acid played important roles in the formation of the spinnable sol and the possible mechanism for the formation of the hollow α-Fe₂O₃ fibers was discussed in detail. The hollow α-Fe fibers could be obtained by reducing the as-prepared α-Fe₂O₃ fibers under hydrogen flow and the α-Fe particle size increased to ∼150 nm.

Truncated rhombic dodecahedral zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) nanocrystals are fabricated with acetate as a modulating ligand; ZnS hollow polyhedra with uniform morphology are obtained using the ZIF-8 templates.