Plasma assists titanium nitride and surface modified titanium nitride nanoparticles from titanium scraps for magnetic properties and supercapacitor applications

Plasma methods are efficient processing for metal recovery from metal scrap, bearing minerals, electronic waste, etc. In this work, pure titanium nitride nanoparticles (TiN NPs) were synthesized from titanium scraps by the thermal plasma arc discharge (TPAD) method. TPAD synthesized TiN NPs have a highly crystalline nature with cubic and spherical morphologies with average particle sizes of 30–100 nm. Further, prepared TiN NPs involving surface modification (SM) or etching processes were investigated by using the non-thermal DC glow discharge plasma technique with air atmosphere at different processing times. SM@TiN NPs have a comparatively low crystalline, which was confirmed from the powder X-ray diffraction technique. SM@TiN NPs have very interesting core shell morphologies, which are due to the surface interactions of ionized air molecules. TiN and SM@TiN NPs have room-temperature ferromagnetic properties with high saturation magnetization (Ms) up to 2.6 and 3.0 emu/g and very high coercivity (Hc) of 235.5 Oe, respectively. TiN and SM@TiN NPs have superior energy storage performance with an outstanding specific capacitance of 192.8 and 435.1 F/g at a current density of 2 A/g with pseudocapacitive behavior. These results reveal that TiN and SM@TiN NPs have highly promising electrodes for supercapacitor applications.     

Montmorillonite-perlite-iron ceramic membranes for the adsorption/removal of As(III) and other constituents from surface water

In this study, ceramic membranes made of montmorillonite, perlite and iron were used to remove As(III) from water. Membranes prepared with 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 wt% of iron content were used to filtrate As(III) synthetic water and surface water solutions. As(III) adsorption capacity and removal efficiency, and other parameters such as cations and anions content, turbidity, pH, electrical conductivity were used to evaluate the membranes' performance. Results show that the As(III) adsorption/removal capacity of membranes was improved by the addition of iron. Adsorption capacity of 7.5 μg As(III)/g and removal efficiency of 97% can be achieved in membranes with 1.0 wt% of iron filings content for surface water; however, a greater amount of iron in the membrane structure limits the adsorption capacity of As(III). Besides the capacity of ceramic membranes to adsorb/remove As(III), membranes were also effective to remove other ions, turbidity, and electrical conductivity from the surface water. The addition of iron to the ceramic membranes enhanced their capacity to remove such surface water constituents. These results are important from the practical viewpoint showing the potential of ceramic membranes for the removal of metalloids and other water constituents. Langmuir isotherm model best described the adsorption process in ceramic membranes, suggesting that adsorption of As(III) happened on a monolayered surface of the ceramic membrane.     

Approaching Ultrastable High‐Rate Li–S Batteries through Hierarchically Porous Titanium Nitride Synthesized by Multiscale Phase Separation

Porous architectures are important in determining the performance of lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs). Among them, multiscale porous architecutures are highly desired to tackle the limitations of single‐sized porous architectures, and to combine the advantages of different pore scales. Although a few carbonaceous materials with multiscale porosity are employed in LSBs, their nonpolar surface properties cause the severe dissolution of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs). In this context, multiscale porous structure design of noncarbonaceous materials is highly required, but has not been exploited in LSBs yet because of the absence of a facile method to control the multiscale porous inorganic materials. Here, a hierarchically porous titanium nitride (h‐TiN) is reported as a multifunctional sulfur host, integrating the advantages of multiscale porous architectures with intrinsic surface properties of TiN to achieve high‐rate and long‐life LSBs. The macropores accommodate the high amount of sulfur, facilitate the electrolyte penetration and transportation of Li⁺ ions, while the mesopores effectively prevent the LiPS dissolution. TiN strongly adsorbs LiPS, mitigates the shuttle effect, and promotes the redox kinetics. Therefore, h‐TiN/S shows a reversible capacity of 557 mA h g^?1 even after 1000 cycles at 5 C rate with only 0.016% of capacity decay per cycle.     

Numerical modelling of a low power non-transferred arc plasma reactor for methane conversion

Thermal flow characteristics and the methane conversion reaction in a low power arc plasma reactor for efficient storage and transport of methane, which is the main component of shale gas, were simulated. The temperature and velocity distributions were calculated according to the type of discharge gases and arc current level by a self-developed magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code and a commercial ANSYS-FLUENT code; the transport of chemical species was analyzed as including the chemical reactions of methane conversion. The simulated results were verified by the comparison of calculated and measured arc voltages with permissible low error as under 4%. Three C₂ hydrocarbon gases with ethane (C₂H₆), ethylene (C₂H₄), and acetylene (C₂H₂) were selected as the converted species of methane from experimental data. The mass fraction of C₂ hydrocarbons and hydrogen as the product of the conversion reaction at the reactor was also calculated. Those values show good agreement with the actual experimental results in that the major conversion reaction occurred in C₂H₂ and hydrogen, and the conversions to C₂H₆, C₂H₄, and hydrogen were minor reactions of methane pyrolysis conversion.     

Hydrogen from wet air and sunlight in a tandem photoelectrochemical cell

A solid-state photoelectrochemical (SSPEC) cell is an attractive approach for solar water splitting, especially when it comes to monolithic device design. In a SSPEC cell the electrodes distance is minimized, while the use of polymer-based membranes alleviates the need for liquid electrolytes, and at the same time they can separate the anode from the cathode. In this work, we have made and tested, firstly, a SSPEC cell with a Pt/C electrocatalyst as the cathode electrode, under purely gaseous conditions. The anode was supplied with air of 80% relative humidity (RH) and the cathode with argon. Secondly, we replaced the Pt/C cathode with a photocathode consisting of 2D photocatalytic g-C₃N₄, which was placed in tandem with the photoanode (tandem-SSPEC). The tandem configuration showed a three-fold enhancement in the obtained photovoltage and a steady-state photocurrent density. The mechanism of operation is discussed in view of recent advances in surface proton conduction in absorbed water layers. The presented SSPEC cell is based on earth-abundant materials and provides a way towards systems of artificial photosynthesis, especially for areas where water sources are scarce and electrical grid infrastructure is limited or nonexistent. The only requirements to make hydrogen are humidity and sunlight.     

New Approach to Structure–Property Correlations of Different Films of Sorbitan Esters and Their Self-Assembly into Viscoelastic Monolayers

This publication is focused on the structural origin of viscoelasticity in Langmuir monolayers. To improve the understanding of the structural origin of viscoelasticity of surfactant films, we systematically studied interfacial films of different sorbitan esters with saturated (Span 60 and 65) and unsaturated (Span 80 and 85) paraffin chains by means of surface rheology, Langmuir isotherms, X-ray reflectometry (XRR), and Brewster angle microscopy (BAM). The results of two-dimensional shear rheological measurements revealed the existence of temporarily cross-linked networks. In dynamic BAM experiments, we observed a swinging motion of the monolayers as a result of a sudden externally initiated mechanical perturbation. The viscoelastic film response, which relaxed with time as the external force vanished, could be traced back to the presence of foam-like supramolecular structures that interlinked solid-condensed domains. The temperature dependence of the elastic response implied that the solid domains decomposed at temperatures close to the bulk melting point of Span 60 and Span 65. We concluded that insoluble surfactants formed solid domains at the interface, which were linked with each other by nonsolid areas, giving viscoelastic films. These newly discovered insights into coherent film formations could provide new opportunities for designing mechanically stable surfactant interfaces.     

An integrated method based on energy concentration for evaluating normally distributed spectra in the visible region

This work proposes a method to scientifically quantify the quality of normally distributed visible spectra from the viewpoint of energy concentration: high transmittance, narrow spectral width, and small deviation from the target wavelength in the target region. In the proposed method, the spectral width of the spectrum is compared with that of a reference spectrum before its deviation from the target wavelength is examined. After extracting the maximum transmittance, a performance index of the spectrum is obtained in a percentile value. The effectiveness of the proposed method was analytically proven by surface plasmon resonance-generated spectra with five design features and five variations in each feature. The results indicated that the proposed method not only substantially reflected the predictions made by intuitive visual inspections, but also avoided misleading and ambiguous results evaluated by existing full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) method, figure-of-merit (FOM) method, and coordinates on the chromaticity diagram. In addition to the numerical analysis, the experimentally obtained spectra of phosphors in white light emitting diodes were also evaluated. The results proved that the proposed method can successfully highlight the scaled performance difference among the spectra, which is not supported by existing FWHM and FOM methods by simultaneously considering the aforementioned three characteristics of a spectrum.