Metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) materials have been widely applied for gas sensing and environmental protection, because of their wide availability and high sensitivity to low ppm concentration of gases.

Tungsten carbide (WC) has several excellent properties, including high melting point (2600–2850 °C), great hardness, high fracture toughness, high electrical and thermal conductivities, which make it become a promising material in various fields. Considering these excellent properties, WC has been widely used as cemented tungsten carbide materials in the tool industry to produce cutting, mining tools, drilling tools and general wear parts.

Hydrogen fuel could play a key role in future sustainable energy systems as demand for energy is globally increasing. Moreover, an environment friendly energy resources are in urgent need to replace the current fossil fuel energy systems. Among the available energy sources, hydrogen possesses significantly high energy density compared to conventional fossil fuels and hence emerges as one of the ideal replacements to fossil fuels.

Tungsten (W) alloy are widely applied in many engineering applications including radiation shields, counterweight balance, electrical contacts, damping devices, and kinetic energy penetrators. The wide applications benefit from its high melting point, good thermal stability, high strength, and high radiation absorption capacity. However, tungsten alloy suffers from low temperature brittleness and unexpected growth characteristics in recrystallization.

Sustainable energy sources are crucial in the modern world, where conventional fossil fuels contribute towards an alarming percentage of hazardous pollutants in the environment. Hydrogen is a non-polluting fuel and a replenishable energy source, able enough to take the edge of an energy crisis. Noble metal platinum (Pt) has been proved to be the most effective electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the high price of Pt limits its applications.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas sensor at low concentration is important as NO2 is not good to human nervous system and respiratory organs. Tungsten oxide (WO3), a popular n-type semiconductor with a band-gap of 2.6–2.8 eV, has been widely studied as a promising sensing material for determining NO2 gas because it exhibits high sensitivity, low cost of manufacturing and a fast response.

In the development of tungsten-based Plasma Facing Materials/Components (PFMs/PFCs), materials scientists have explored many different, innovative preparation and processing routes to meet the requirement of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Tungsten (W) is one of the best candidates for plasma-facing materials in the fusion reactors, owing to its many unique properties. However, some inherent defects such as the embrittlement, high DBTT of tungsten material restrict its application on PFMs and PFCs.

With ever-increasing demands of energy and environmental issues caused by extensive combustion of traditional fossil fuels, the quest for clean and sustainable energy sources as alternatives has attracted extensive research interest. Hydrogen seems to be a promising alternate due to its nontoxicity, ideal combustion efficiency and high gravimetric energy density. Among many accepted ways of hydrogen generation, photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting has been widely regarded as an appealing solution.

Due to the environmental pollution and climate change cause by burning of fossil fuels, finding a renewable and clean energy alternative is becoming increasingly important. Hydrogen (H2) has high energy density and zero emission, which makes it one of the most promising energy carriers in future. Among various hydrogen production methods, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from electrocatalytic water splitting is considered as an ideal eco-friendly strategy to generate hydrogen in a large scale.

In the past few decades, nanostructured materials has gained more scientific interest owing to their distinctive physical and chemical properties. Lanthanum tungstate (La2(WO4)3) nanoparticles exhibits a monoclinic scheelite-like structure with a space group of C2/c. It has been widely applied in fields such as luminescence, photocatalysis and scintillators due to their unique optical and structural properties.