The synthesis of Pt-based nanoparticles (NPs) with ultrasmall feature and tailored structure is of great importance for catalysis yet challenging. In this work, we demonstrate a facile top–down strategy for the fabrication of small-sized Pt-based intermetallic compounds (IMCs) with L1₀ structure through the evaporation of Cd under high temperature. Impressively, such thermal treatment can be used as a versatile strategy for creating binary, ternary, quaternary, quinary, and senary L1₀-Pt-based IMCs. Moreover, the small-sized Pt-based IMCs display high stability against high temperature of 700 °C, which can serve as active and selective catalyst for the selective hydrogenation of 4-nitrophenylacetylene. This work may not only provide a versatile top–down strategy for fabricating highly stable small-sized Pt-based NPs with L1₀ structure, but also promote their extensive applications in catalysis and beyond.

Ni modification is considered as an efficient strategy for boosting the performance of Pt towards alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR), yet its specific role is largely undecoded. Here, ultrathin Pt nanowires (NWs) are selected as models for revealing the significance of Ni modification on HOR by precisely positioning Ni on distinct positions of Pt NWs. Ni solely influences the electronic properties of Pt and thus weakens ^*H adsorption when it is located in the core of PtNi alloyed NWs, leading to a moderate improvement of alkaline HOR activity. When Ni is distributed in both core and surface of PtNi alloyed NWs, Ni strongly weakens ^*H adsorption but strengthens ^*OH adsorption. On the other hand, the electronic properties of Pt are hardly influenced when Ni is deposited on the surface of Pt NWs, on which the strong ^*H and ^*OH adsorptions lead to the improved HOR activity. This work reveals the significance of Ni modification on HOR, but also promotes the fundamental researches on catalyst design for fuel cell reactions and beyond.

The design of highly active and stable RuO₂-based nanostructures for acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is extremely important for the development of water electrolysis technology, yet remains great challenges. We here demonstrate that the incorporation of S into RuCuO nanorings (NRs) can significantly enhance the acidic OER performance. Experimental investigations show that the incorporation of S can optimize the interaction of Ru and O, and therefore significantly suppresses the dissolution of Ru in acidic condition. The optimized catalyst (S_H-RuCuO NRs) displays superior OER performance to the commercial RuO₂/C. Impressively, the S_H-RuCuO NRs can exhibit significantly enhanced stability for 3,000 cycles of cyclic voltammetry test and more than 250 h chronopotentiometry test at 10 mA·cm⁻² in 0.5 M H₂SO₄. This work highlights a potential strategy for designing active and stable RuO₂-based electrocatalysts for acidic OER.

Metal halide perovskite nanocrystals have attracted great attention of researchers due to their unique optoelectronic properties such as high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY), narrow full width at half-maximum (FWHM), long exciton diffusion length and high carrier mobility, which have been widely used in diverse fields including solar cells, photodetectors, light-emitting diodes, and lasers. Very recently, metal halide perovskites have emerged as a new class of materials in photocatalysis due to their promising photocatalytic performance. In this review, we summarize the recent advances on synthesis, modification and functionalization, with a specific focus on the photocatalytic application of metal halide perovskite nanocrystals. Finally, a brief outlook is proposed to point out the challenges in this emerging area. The goal of this view is to introduce the photocatalytic application of the metal halide perovskites and motivate researchers from different fields to explore more potentials in catalysis.