The steady increase in fossil fuel consumption and severe environmental contamination have promoted extensive research activities in developing alternative clean energy resources. Harvesting and converting natural and primary energy from the environment such as thermal (e.g., geothermal and industrial heat) and mechanical (e.g., wind, water flow, vibration and noise) energy, as potential candidates to replace fossil fuels have attracted considerable research interest. We focus on nanostructured piezo-/ferro-electrics (utilizing mechanical energy) and pyro-/thermo-electrics (utilizing temperature oscillation or difference) for a variety of catalytic applications including renewable energy conversion (water splitting, CO2 reduction), environmental remediation (air purification, pollutant degradation, disinfection) and materials synthesis (selective growth/deposition, organic synthesis)