PEM fuel cells are expected to play dominant role in future clean energy solutions for various applications. Developing highly efficient low-Pt and Pt-free catalysts are the key solutions for the wide-spread commercialization of PEMFCs. Through green chemistry and/or ALD techniques, we fabricated various novel Pt nanostructures, including nanowires, nanotubes, and single atoms. Compared to the conventional Pt nanoparticle/C commercial catalyst, these novel Pt nanostructures exhibited much enhanced activity (up to 10 times) and stability (up to 6 times) for fuel cells [1-7]. On the other hand, we recently developed novel Fe/N/C catalysts which exhibited higher activity in alkaline media and equivalent activity in acidic electrolyte compared to Pt. [8] Moreover, we systematically studied the decay mechanism of the MOF-based Fe/N/C catalyst, which is of significant important to improve the durability of Fe/N/C catalysts [9].

Both lithium-ion (LIB) and sodium-ion batteries (SIB) are promising technologies for energy storage. We developed a facile, inexpensive and scalable wet-chemical strategy to fabricate the Fe₃O₄/graphene composites and porous carbon spheres. The nanocomposite shows dramatically enhanced electrochemical properties including excellent reversible capacity, cyclability and rate performance in LIBs and SIBs [10,11].

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