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• A low-density and high-strength SCBD with a homogeneous structure was prepared. • The yield of SCB is related to the content of light components. • The volume shrinkage of SCB increased by 56.1 % after removing light components. • The flexural and compressive strength increased by 84.6 and 103.0 %, respectively. • SCBD has a better crystal structure due to the removal of harmful light components. A new process of removing useless volatile matter from green petroleum coke (GPC) using recoverable dichloromethane (CH 2 Cl 2) was developed to prepare self-sintering calcinated block (SCBD), which had potential application as carbon sealing materials (CSMs). Self-sintering calcinated block (SCB) was also prepared without removal unless volatile matter from GPC. Compared with SCB, SCBD had not only lower open porosity, median pore diameter and denser microstructure, but also provided superior mechanical properties, higher volume density and high yield of about 100 %. Furthermore, the flexural and compressive strength were increased by 84.57 % and 102.97 %, respectively. The correlations between the structure and properties of carbon materials were also discussed in detail. It was demonstrated that the new process studied in this work had more advantages in improving the adhesion, self-sintering, mechanical properties, and yield of the GPC than conventional direct molding process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uniform ZnO nanospheres have been successfully synthesized through a facile solvothermal process. The structure and morphology of the products were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The results showed that the products were ZnO nanospheres of 300–350 nm in diameter, which were composed of nanoparticles of ca. 5–10 nm. The size of the nanospheres can be tuned from ca. 300 nm to 1 μm by changing the concentration of the reactants. The gas sensing performance of the ZnO nanospheres with different size were investigated, which indicated that the ZnO nanospheres exhibited good gas sensitivity and selectivity towards n-butanol. In addition, the gas sensitivity of the ZnO nanospheres exhibited obvious size-dependent effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A novel approach to rapid fabrication of fullerene C60 nanotubes (FNTs) has been developed using C60–pyridine colloid as a precursor. The colloid was prepared by exposing a C60–pyridine solution to visible light. Without irradiation of the visible light, growth of FNTs is not found in the freshly prepared C60–pyridine solution and the ultrasound-agitated solution. By contrast, the FNTs were easily grown in the C60–pyridine solution which was exposed to the visible light. The observation of the Tyndall effect indicated the formation of C60–pyridine colloid that is essential for synthesizing the FNTs with excellent reproducibility. The results showed that the wall of FNTs was a local face-centered cubic crystal arrangement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]