The role of carbon in microstructure evolution of SiBCO ceramics

The composition of polymer derived ceramics could be readily tuned through controlling the structure and element content of the polymer precursors, and investigation on the effect of the element on microstructure evolution is important to the design of advanced ceramics. In this article, the effect of carbon content in SiBCO polymer precursors was systematically investigated. The polymer network and thermal stability of polymer precursors and the carbon content of pyrolyzed SiBCO ceramic could be readily tuned by controlling the DVB amount used. Carbon contributed to the formation of graphitic carbon in SiBC_xO ceramics and inhibited the growth of β–SiC and SiO₂ crystals at 1600 °C, but lead to an increase in the graphitic carbon phase at 1800 °C.     

Electronic structure and absolute band edge position of tetragonal AgInS2 photocatalyst: A hybrid density functional study

Energy bands, effective mass of carriers, absolute band edge positions and optical properties of tetragonal AgInS₂ were calculated using a first-principles approach with the exchange correlation described by B3LYP hybrid functional. The results indicate that tetragonal AgInS₂ has a direct band gap of 1.93 eV, which reproduce well experimental value. Calculated effective masses of electrons and holes are both small which are beneficial to separation and migration of electron and hole pairs. This implies that AgInS₂ has good photocatalytic performance. The calculated optical characteristics indicate that AgInS₂ has a slight anisotropy for both the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function and exhibits large optical absorption in the visible light region. Furthermore, the calculated band edge positions in (100), (010) and (001) surfaces indicate that tetragonal AgInS₂ is beneficial to the reduction and oxidation of water to hydrogen and oxygen under visible light irradiation.     

Hydrothermal synthesis of 3D NixCo1−xS2 particles/graphene composite hydrogels for high performance supercapacitors

In this work, three dimensional (3D) Ni_xCo_1−xS₂/graphene composite hydrogels with different Ni contents (denoted as Ni_xCo_1−xS₂/GH (x = 0, 0.31, 0.56, 0.66, 1)) have been synthesized by a simple one-step hydrothermal method and utilized as the active materials of supercapacitors. The as-prepared samples present a 3D interconnected porous network with the pore sizes in the range of several to tens micrometers. Interestingly, the Ni_xCo_1−xS₂ particles are uniformly located on the graphene network and the particle size is evolved from ∼50 nm to ∼1.5 μm with the increase of Ni content. The electrochemical measurements revealed that the specific capacitance, rate capability and cyclability of different Ni_xCo_1−xS₂/GH electrodes are strongly affected by their different Ni content. Among these, the 3D Ni_0.31Co_0.69S₂/GH composite has the highest specific capacitance of 1166 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g. Furthermore, a specific capacitance of 559 F/g can be still maintained at high current density of 20 A/g. After 1000 charge–discharge cycles at 5 A/g, the specific capacitance remains a high value of 755 F/g.     

A simple approach for fabrication of interconnected graphitized macroporous carbon foam with uniform mesopore walls by using hydrothermal method

Three-dimensional (3D) highly interconnected graphitized macroporous carbon foam with uniform mesopore walls has been successfully fabricated by a simple and efficient hydrothermal approach using resorcinol and formaldehyde as carbon precursors. The commercially available cheap polyurethane (PU) foam and Pluronic F127 were used as a sacrificial polymer and mesoporous structure-directing templates, respectively. The graphitic structure of carbon foam was obtained by catalytic graphitization method using iron as catalyst. Three different carbon foams such as graphitized macro-mesoporous carbon (GMMC) foam, amorphous macro-mesoporous carbon (AMMC) foam and graphitized macroporous carbon (GMC) foam were fabricated and their physicochemical and mechanical properties were systematically measured and compared. It was found that GMMC possess well interconnected macroporous structure with uniform mesopores located in the macroporous skeletal walls of continuous framework. Besides, GMMC foam possesses a well-defined graphitic framework with high surface area (445 m²/g), high pore volume (0.35 cm³/g), uniform mesopores (3.87 nm), high open porosity (90%), low density (0.30 g/cm³) with good mechanical strength (1.25 MPa) and high electrical conductivity (11 S/cm) which makes it a promising material for many potential applications.     

Ag–Cu–BTC prepared by postsynthetic exchange as effective catalyst for selective oxidation of toluene to benzaldehyde

A mixed-node MOF catalyst Ag–Cu–BTC was prepared by postsynthetic exchange (PSE) method. It is believed that PSE method can realize isomorphous replacement of Ag ion to framework Cu ion in Cu–BTC successfully. The catalytic performance of Ag–Cu–BTC was investigated via selective oxidation of toluene to benzaldehyde by molecular oxygen in the absence of solvent and initiator. This catalyst exhibits good catalytic performance: on the premise of keeping highly selective catalysis of Cu–BTC for toluene oxidizing to benzaldehyde, the introduction of Ag (Ag content is 2.76 wt.%) can promote toluene conversion from 6.5% to 12.7%.     

光化学法制备过渡金属-氮共掺杂多孔炭基CO2电还原催化剂

过渡金属-氮共掺杂炭材料是一类高效的CO₂电还原催化剂。以热解聚合物制备的氮掺杂炭材料为载体,浸渍镍源,经红外灯光照2 h,利用光化学法制备了高分散的镍-氮-碳催化剂（Ni/NC）。采用扫描电镜（SEM）、物理吸附、粉末X射线衍射（XRD）、X射线光电子能谱（XPS）等手段对催化剂的形貌、结构、物相和组成进行了分析,并评价了催化剂的CO₂电还原反应性能。电化学性能测试结果表明,在0.5 mol/L的KHCO₃电解液中,镍的负载量为2 %（质量分数）时催化性能最好,CO分电流密度得到有效提升,塔菲尔斜率为492 mV/dec,起始过电位为286 mV;在-0.6 V（vs.RHE）下,CO的法拉第效率为78%,在-1.0 ~-0.5 V（vs.RHE）内,n（CO）/n（H₂）=0.5~3.6。     

钒酸铋晶面调控制备及其降解四环素类抗生素性能研究

采用溶剂热法合成了单斜白钨矿型钒酸铋（m-BiVO₄）催化材料,采用XRD、BET、SEM、TEM等对其进行了表征。研究发现m-BiVO₄的形貌和晶面可以通过反应溶液的pH进行调控,在pH=7条件下制备出了具有（010）晶面择优暴露的m-BiVO₄（BVO-010）。以盐酸金霉素（CTC-HCl）、土霉素（OTC）、四环素（TC）和盐酸四环素（TCN）溶液为目标污染物,评价了制备材料的光催化降解性能。结果发现,与主要暴露热力学稳定的（-121）面的m-BiVO₄（BVO-121）相比,BVO-010的降解性能明显提高,光照150 min后对CTC-HCl、OTC、TC和TCN的降解率分别为77.9%、79.2%、63.6%和73.9%,可用于处理含抗生素类药物的污水。     

A dual-stimuli-responsive intelligent layered lanthanide hydroxide for application in information security and latent fingerprint identification

With the rapid changes in the field of information, the research and development of optical storage materials with high security and large storage capacity are particularly important in the development of contemporary society. However, conventional memory materials with static fluorescent outputs have the disadvantages of easy simulation and forgery, which limits their practical application in the protection of confidential information. In this research, a dual-stimuli-responsive intelligent fluorescent material based on Tb³⁺ and Eu³⁺ ions doped layered lanthanide hydroxide (LYH:Eu_xTb_1–xDPA) was fabricated, which can realize reversible multi-color luminescence conversion (from green to red) by varying the pH and temperature. Combined with the Morse code and security pattern, the multiple encryption and decryption of confidential information and anti-counterfeiting can also be realized. Therefore, the obtained intelligent fluorescent material has a great application prospect for information security. In addition, due to the excellent color tunability, the material can provide the possibility to obtain potential fingerprints with high contrast and no background interference on different color substrates. The unique dual-stimuli-responsive behavior of this material provides more ingenious design inspiration for the design of multi-color intelligent fluorescent devices.     

A high propylene productivity over B2O3/SiO2@honeycomb cordierite catalyst for oxidative dehydrogenation of propane

Boron-based metal-free catalysts for oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODHP) have drawn great attention in both academia and industry due to their impressive activity and olefin selectivity. Herein, the SiO₂ and B₂O₃ sequentially coated honeycomb cordierite catalyst is designed by a two-step wash-coat method with different B₂O₃ loadings (0.1%-10%) and calcination temperatures (600, 700, 800 ℃). SiO₂ obtained by TEOS hydrolysis acts as a media layer to bridge the cordierite substrate and boron oxide via abundant Si-OH groups. The welldeveloped straight channels of honeycomb cordierite make it possible to carry out the reactor under high gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) and the thin wash-coated B₂O₃ layer can effectively facilitate the pore diffusion on the catalyst. The prepared B₂O₃/SiO₂@HC monolithic catalyst exhibits good catalytic performance at low boron oxide loading and achieves excellent propylene selectivity (86.0%), olefin selectivity (97.6%, propylene and ethylene) and negligible CO₂ (0.1%) at 16.9% propane conversion under high GHSV of 345,600 ml·(g B₂O₃)^-1·h^-1, leading to a high propylene space time yield of 15.7 g C₃H₆·(g B₂O₃)^-1·h^-1 by suppressing the overoxidation. The obtained results strongly indicate that the boron-based monolithic catalyst can be properly fabricated to warrant the high activity and high throughput with its high gas/surface ratio and straight channels.