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g., lactic acid). Consequently, the visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution of this composite photocatalyst greatly improved. The dual-cocatalyst-modified CdS with a loading content of 5 mol % showed a high hydrogen evolution rate of 80.8 mmol·g-1·h-1, which was 202 times higher than that of bare CdS (0.4 mmol·g-1·h-1). This is the highest enhancement factor for metal phosphide-modified CdS photocatalysts. It also exhibited remarkable stability in a continuous photocatalytic test with a total reaction time of 24 h.Humidified perfluorosulfonic acid polymers with a nanoscopic phase-separated morphology are highly proton-conductive materials for fuel cells, yet morphology tuning of the acidic materials for enhanced conduction remains a challenge. Aqueous acidic lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) provide a powerful platform to construct well-defined nanostructures for proton conduction. We report an aqueous LLC formed by 1-tetradecyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrogen sulfate, exhibiting a proton conductivity of 210 mS cm-1 at 25 °C, which surpasses that formed by alkylsulfonic acid, thus demonstrating that a mobile acidic anion is more efficient than constrained sulfonic acid functionality to transport protons in LLCs. For an aqueous solution of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrogen sulfate, a lamellar LLC results in higher conductivity than a micellar solution under the same hydration conditions. The peak power density of the fuel cell fabricated from porous membranes filled with the lamellar LLC is four times as high as that filled with the micellar solution. The work offers an efficient way to construct highly proton-conductive LLC materials for fuel cell application.Significant progress in PbS quantum dot solar cells has been achieved through designing device architecture, engineering band alignment, and optimizing the surface chemistry of colloidal quantum dots (CQDs). However, developing a highly stable device while maintaining the desirable efficiency is still a challenging issue for these emerging solar cells. In this study, by introducing an ultrathin NiO nanocrystalline interlayer between Au electrodes and the hole-transport layer of the PbS-EDT, the resulting PbS CQD solar cell efficiency is improved from 9.3 to 10.4% because of the improved hole-extraction efficiency. More excitingly, the device stability is significantly enhanced owing to the passivation effect of the robust NiO nanocrystalline interlayer. The solar cells with the NiO nanocrystalline interlayer retain 95 and 97% of the initial efficiency when heated at 80 °C for 120 min and treated with oxygen plasma irradiation for 60 min, respectively. In contrast, the control devices without the NiO nanocrystalline interlayer retain only 75 and 63% of the initial efficiency under the same testing conditions.Introducing point defects in complex metal oxides is a very effective route to engineer crystal symmetry and therefore control physical properties. However, the inversion symmetry breaking, which is vital for many tantalizing properties, such as ferroelectricity and chiral spin structure, is usually hard to be induced in the bulk crystal by point defects. By designing the oxygen vacancy formation energy profile and migration path across the oxide heterostructure, our first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that the point defects can effectively break the inversion symmetry and hence create novel ferroelectricity in superlattices consisting of otherwise nonferroelectric materials SrTiO3 and SrRuO3. This induced ferroelectricity can be significantly enhanced by reducing the SrTiO3 thickness. Inspired by theory calculation, SrTiO3/SrRuO3 superlattices were experimentally fabricated and are found to exhibit surprising strong ferroelectric properties. Our finding paves a simple and effective pathway to engineer the inversion symmetry and thus properties by point defect control in oxide heterostructures.Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide membranes have entered the spotlight for nanofiltration application owing to the novel mass transport properties in nanochannels. However, further improving the water permeability with high molecular separation rate simultaneously is challenging. In this work, to achieve ultrafast molecule separation, MoS2 and WS2 nanosheets with ultrasmall lateral size ( less then 100 nm) are fabricated by sucrose-assisted mechanochemical exfoliation. Ultrasmall nanosheets in the membranes cut down average length of water-transporting paths and create more nanochannels and nanocapillaries for water molecules to pass through membranes. The water flux of these kinds of MoS2 and WS2 membranes are significantly enhanced to 918 and 828 L/m2 h bar, respectively, which is four and two times higher than those of previously reported MoS2 and WS2 membranes with larger lateral size nanosheets. In addition, MoS2 and WS2 membranes display excellent rejection performance for rhodamine B and Evans blue with a high rejection rate (∼99%). This study provides a promising method to improve the performance of 2D laminar membranes for nanofiltration application by using ultrasmall 2D nanosheets.The ability to predict intercalation energetics from first principles is attractive for identifying candidate materials for energy storage, chemical sensing, and catalysis. In this work, we introduce a computational framework that can be used to predict the thermodynamics of hydrogen intercalation in tungsten trioxide (WO3). Specifically, using density functional theory (DFT), we investigated intercalation energetics as a function of adsorption site and hydrogen stoichiometry. click here Site-specific acid-base properties determined using DFT were used to develop linear structure screening models that informed a kernel ridge energy prediction model. These regressions provided a series of hydrogen binding energy predictions across stoichiometries ranging from WO3 to H0.625WO3, which were then converted to equilibrium potentials for hydrogen intercalation. Experimental validation using cyclic voltammetry measurements yielded good agreement with the predicted intercalation potentials. This methodology enables fast exploration of a large geometric configuration space and reveals an intuitive physical relationship between acidity, basicity, and the thermodynamics of hydrogen intercalation.